


We Were Never Here

by SweetestDisarray (PleasantDisarray)



Series: WWNH verse [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, References to Suicide, past Kurt/Blaine - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:57:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PleasantDisarray/pseuds/SweetestDisarray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt is at Callbacks when an intoxicated Sebastian Smythe crashes into his lap. He's less than impressed, but then there's alcohol, and kissing, and violent storms that are beautiful in the ache of it; and they're wrapped up in each other's lives before they even see it coming.</p><p>But they both know it can only be temporary. At the end of the year Sebastian is leaving for Dublin - running, though he won't admit it - and Blaine is moving to New York and coming for Kurt. All they have is the rest of the year. At least, that was the plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This was my entry for the Kurtbastian bigbang 2012/2013; if you haven't checked out the bigbang, you should, because there are plenty of amazing fics going up! Because this story was written for the bigbang, there is also art to go with it: the super lovely and talented jatti-tatti/snownymph drew a scene from this chapter, and you can find it at snownymph.tumblr.com/post/40864342029
> 
> I also finally posted the fanmix for the story, which can be found at gellervention.livejournal.com/3120.html
> 
> The warnings for this story include m/m sex (not graphic), frequent alcohol use and discussion of suicide (David Karofsky's and a line or two about a stranger's).

Kurt was just about to leave Callbacks, still sober, still feeling more than a little like a third wheel to Rachel and Brody, when someone fell squarely into his lap.

Well, not so squarely. The man fell sideways onto Kurt's legs, hitting his head against the edge of table Kurt was sitting at with an audible thud. Kurt squawked and flung himself and his chair backwards, unseating his apparent assailant who dropped heavily to the floor, all loose limbs, crashing his back into the table as well. The table rocked dangerously, and Kurt futilely grabbed at empty glasses skidding across its surface. He winced when one of them toppled off the other side and shattered, the sound barely registering in the din of the bar. Kurt's first thought was _thank God it's not a karaoke night_ , followed quickly by a flush of anger.

He was ready to give whatever drunken idiot had assaulted him a proper bitching out, (because, God, he'd barely been here four months and the edge of an embattled New Yorker was already creeping into his temper) when he caught sight of the man's face and completely lost his train of thought.

Sebastian Smythe, however, was clearly not suffering the same mute surprise. "Oh hey, Kurt," he said, as if this were the Lima Bean and not a NYADA haunt in New York. He grinned up at Kurt, quick and sharp. "More boy clothes today! I feel like I should congratulate you."

Kurt, hackles already raised, felt himself stiffen in an all-too-familiar manner. Sebastian may have apologised and played nice after David's suicide attempt, which had somehow shocked him out of the insane warpath he'd been on, but clearly a year was enough for him to forget. "Sebastian," he said coolly, getting to his feet so he could tower over the boy still sitting on the floor. "What a surprise. Not the embarrassing level of intoxication, of course, but I wasn't aware this was a NYU hangout. Or have you already slept your way through its entire population desperate enough to have you? I can't imagine seven people would take you very long."

"Please," Sebastian drawled, "anyone at NYU would murder for five minutes with me. Unfortunately for them, they just can't compete with guys who have two hours of dance class a day." As if to prove a point, he turned to Brody, who had come to stand with Rachel beside Kurt, eyes sliding over Brody's broad shoulders and down his body with a smirk.

"I'm straight, but thanks," Brody said with an easy grin. "You know him, Kurt?"

"Regrettably."

"Hey, play nice." Sebastian hauled himself back to his feet. "We're all big gay best buddies now, remember?"

"I do. You seemed to have forgotten, though," Kurt said dryly, picking up his coat from the back of his chair.

"I'm trying. It's tough." Sebastian turned as his name was shouted - Kurt could see two tall, lean figures, possibly in Brody's year, beckoning by the door. Sebastian wobbled slightly as he turned to them, and one of the waiting NYADA boys caught Kurt's eye. Saying something to his companion, he worked his way over and stepped in between Sebastian and Kurt.

"Seb, we're moving on before you get us kicked out," he said, gesturing to the shattered glass with amusement. "But you seem to have made a friend."

"Kurt's another little, lost gay from Cowtown, Ohio." Sebastian waved a hand distractedly, eyeing off the Callbacks staff member who was approaching, dustpan in hand and looking less than impressed.

Just as Kurt was about to snark that the stranger should move Sebastian on sooner rather than later, to save him from both the staff and Kurt himself, the stranger turned to him. "I'm Charlie. Hi," he said, his voice slightly gravelly. "We're going to Heat. You should come."

Kurt blinked for a moment, brain struggling to get beyond that fact that, hello, Charlie was the _definition_ of tall, dark and handsome. Slightly behind him, Kurt could feel Rachel shift uneasily, and Brody - the one boy Rachel had ever dated with a shred of tact - whispered to her, "Relax, Rach; Charlie's cool. Kurt will be fine." Kurt, however, wasn't so sure. Going off with two strangers and, even worse, a drunk Sebastian Smythe, to a gay nightclub? Thanks, but no thanks.

"Thank you very much for the offer, Charlie, but I think I should go home with my friends," Kurt replied, a little breathlessly.

Rachel, however, was now looking between Charlie and Kurt with a calculating expression, which never boded well. She burst out with, "Oh no, Kurt, you should definitely go, celebrate some more! Brody and I will be just fine."

"Celebrate?" Charlie asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Kurt is an intern at Vogue, and today his boss promoted him to a paid role," Rachel said, "and he hasn't celebrated enough. So you should really go, Kurt."

Sebastian, too, was wearing a calculating expression (well, as calculating as it could be with an alcohol haze still clouding his eyes) as he looked from Charlie and then almost appraisingly over the length of Kurt. Before Kurt could interject with another decline, he said, "Come on, Kurt. A step up from Scandals, I promise." He paused, before adding, "Not that you know that there was any step up to be had, I'm assuming."

That was a direct challenge if Kurt had ever heard one, and really, screw his competitive nature and _screw_ Sebastian, because there was no way Kurt couldn't fight back. And Sebastian clearly knew that, so Kurt was playing right into whatever plan the boy had.

But if there was one thing Kurt Hummel was superb at doing, it was acting like he always had the upper hand, even when he was scrabbling. Lifting his chin, he said, "Just the mention of Vogue gets me into places you're still dreaming of, Sebastian." He squeezed Rachel's hand quick and firm and followed Charlie out into the night.

The few blocks to Heat passed in relative silence, all four men striding quickly in the bitter January air. As they approached the short queue and bouncer at the front of the club, though, Kurt leant in a little closer to Sebastian to mutter, "Exactly how do you plan to get us in? Neither of us are twenty one, and you're already drunk."

Sebastian smirked and just nodded in front of him, where Charlie and the other NYADA boy - Weston, Kurt thought his name was - were walking. "Just watch."

The four of them got into the queue as it slowly inched to the front door. As they reached the bouncer, Charlie stepped up, grabbing the burly guy's hand and slapping his back cheerfully. "Neil, my man!" Charlie said, beckoning the other three to come a little closer. "How are you doing? How's Greg?" After a short conversation, Neil waved all four of them in without a single ID checked.

As they checked their coats and paid cover, Kurt raised his eyebrow. Sebastian eventually explained, "Neil has been dating Charlie's cousin for, like, forever. He never asks questions."

Once inside, Charlie and Sebastian made a beeline for the bar. Charlie leaned over the sticky counter, ordering something with the bartender that Kurt couldn't hear; moments later he and Sebastian were standing in front of him, holding two precariously filled shot glasses each. Sebastian handed off his second one to Weston, while Charlie held his in front of Kurt, before stepping in close to half-shout in Kurt's ear over the thudding music. "First round's on me, to help you celebrate."

Kurt lifted the shot glass to his eye. In the black-blue lighting of the club, it appeared almost aqua, and Kurt had to ask, "What is it?"

Charlie and Sebastian both laughed, and Kurt flushed. "Absinthe," Charlie said. "Pretty shit quality absinthe, but if you shot this one I promise _everything_ will taste good for the rest of the night."

"Or would you like another Shirley Temple?" Sebastian asked. "You'd have to order it yourself, since I'm not sure my dignity can handle ordering a second one for you in this lifetime."

Seriously, _screw_ Sebastian and his challenges.

"I once got drunk off rubbing alcohol in high school," Kurt snapped, deliberately ignoring, even in his own head, the events with Ms Pillsbury that had followed. "I think I can handle it."

Charlie smiled, lifting his hand to Kurt's chin. "That's the spirit," he said, stroking his thumb over Kurt's lower lip for a mere half a second before gently pulling Kurt's mouth open slightly. "Just make sure you open wide for this one. _Some_ people I've met have a tendency to splutter the first time otherwise." His smile split into a sharp smirk as he glanced over at Sebastian.

Sebastian wordlessly raised the glass in his hand, tilted his head back, and poured the shot down his throat with barely a discernible swallow, his face not changing for so much as a second. "Come on then." He set his glass on a high table and leaned against it, fixing his eyes on Kurt. "Be careful. I can't imagine absinthe is good for your clothes, and I wouldn't want you to ruin one of the two boy outfits you own."

"On three?" Weston asked. A quick countdown and then -

Kurt threw his head back and dropped his jaw, the shot glass clacking against his bottom teeth as the alcohol burned over his tongue and ignited the back of his throat. He inhaled sharply, putting the glass down maybe a little too hard on the table next to Sebastian's. He heard a soft chuckle near his ear as the absinthe slid through, and either from the mocking or the alcohol a hot tingle rushed down through his torso and into his fingers.

Kurt was startled to find that it wasn't a horrible sensation. "Again, or shall we dance?"

Vodka, then whiskey, then a shot called Quick Fuck that even after three others, Kurt never wanted to repeat in his life. After four rounds, he was feeling pretty happy and giggly and his fingers were kind of feeling like they'd lost a fair bit of sensation, so when Charlie grabbed him and suggested the four of them go out and dance, he was more than happy to be led out to the pit of dancers.

Kurt's main expectations of what a gay nightclub should look like, he was not ashamed to admit (at least not in his current state), were mainly formed by seasons of watching people dance at Babylon on Queer as Folk. So were his main lessons on the kind of dancing appropriate for a club. His opinions were, at the same time, sort of true and definitely not. There were no go-go dancers here, for starters, and the dance floor was slightly smaller than the huge, writhing mass of mostly shirtless men that Queer as Folk had promised. And more shirts might not necessarily be a bad thing, because the average level of attractiveness here was not quite model gorgeous. Better than Ohio, though, by a long shot. And the atmosphere was still dark, the music still heavy and seductive. And as Sebastian had promised, it was all so much better than Scandals.

Kurt stopped for a moment on the edge of the few stairs down into the pit and swayed, touching a hand to his temple and giggling slightly. "Kurt?" Kurt looked sideways to see Sebastian's face tilted down towards him, eyes kind. That was weird. His eyes shouldn't be kind. But, oh, if Kurt was heading for tipsy and Sebastian had already been drunk enough to crash into Kurt before they even did those shots, then... "Kurt?"

Kurt blinked at Sebastian. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay? We did those shots pretty fast, even by our standards."

"I'm fine. Just..." Kurt was getting dizzy and Sebastian's eyes were still kind and that was so weird and before he knew it he was blurting out, "I've never danced like this before."

Sebastian was clearly fighting back laughter as he replied, "I figured."

Kurt huffed. "Well, fuck you."

"Wow, swearing from Kurt Hummel. I didn't know your hair could be let down that far."

Kurt made to go back to the bar, hoping that a fifth shot might loosen him up enough that he could ignore even Sebastian and just dance. Charlie was casting him an occasional glance as he moved ever closer to Weston, and Kurt wanted the courage to get closer himself sooner rather than later. Sebastian grabbed him by the waist and said, "Oh no you don't. You should dance off at least one of those shots before you get another. Even you can play follow the leader. Just don't shimmy, because that shit is weird, and follow Weston and Charlie's lead."

Kurt stalked down the stairs, and Charlie's mouth folded up slightly in welcome as he cast his arm loosely over Kurt's shoulders. His hips moved closer, Weston moved in on the other side, and Kurt tentatively rocked his body. Wedged between the two boys, it was easy just to follow the push and pull of their own bodies, submitting easily to it. He was confident enough in the fluidity of his hips, and so to just follow the lead of two gorgeous, skilled dancers? He wasn't even overly indignant when Weston cheekily leaned closer and popped open the first few buttons of Kurt's shirt. He had a vague feeling that that probably crossed a line for sober Kurt, but he was feeling too good to care.

Sebastian snuck up behind Charlie, pressing himself to the NYADA boy's back and easily joining Charlie's rhythmic motions. Sebastian spoke, just loud enough that Kurt could hear - wow, Kurt was even closer now, almost chest-to-chest with Charlie, and he had no idea when that had happened - asking, "Any promising sightings?"

Charlie twisted his head round to nip at Sebastian's jaw, saying, "What, the three boys you have here aren't enough for you?"

"If I fuck you or Weston one more time the number of repeats is getting into dangerous territory."

"What about both of us at the same time?" Charlie shot back.

Weston ground into Kurt and Charlie's sides, clearly not protesting the idea.

"Still dangerous, babe. Even with two of you it could be familiar enough to be boring." The way Sebastian's hand was beginning to slide down Charlie's chest belied his indifferent tone.

"How about Kurt? Or did you already have your fun in Ohio?"

Sebastian lifted his head from where he had been gently biting at Charlie's earlobe. Kurt wondered for a brief moment what it meant that it was all teeth between these two - but only briefly, because then Sebastian's eyes were locked onto Kurt's over Charlie's shoulder, as hot and dark as the man pressed between their bodies, but with a distinct wicked glint.

"You two can get Kurt ready for me."

And with that, Sebastian was gone, cutting through the crowd even here in New York, bending to press that mouth to a stranger's ear, and whatever words came out were enough, because seconds later they were pressed together.

"I'm almost ready for another couple of drinks. How about you?" Charlie asked. Kurt nodded, letting himself follow close behind Charlie and Weston back to the bar. The first thing Charlie handed to him was some kind of mixed drink, which Kurt used to help him cool down and catch his breath, and then Charlie was pulling him right up against the bar with the most devilish grin Kurt had ever seen on a man, period.

"You're up for a challenge, babe?"

Kurt fixed him with a look. "Always."

Charlie chuckled, seeming almost delighted, and then said, "Okay, then. But I am warning you on this one, Mr Rubbing Alcohol. It doesn't get much stronger than this."

As the bartender approached with three shot glasses and a bottle of some kind of spirit, Charlie quickly advised, "Start drinking as soon as it's poured, or it'll evaporate. And stick close!"

The bartender started with Weston, pouring the shot. He hadn't even lifted the bottle before Weston grabbed the glass, slamming down the fluid it contained with a choke. He dropped his forehead onto the bar as soon as he was done. Charlie followed soon after, and then the bartender - cute, looking not much older than Kurt himself - put a glass in front of Kurt, asked, "Ready?" and started pouring.

Following the leads of Weston and Charlie, and remembering the absinthe, Kurt dropped his jaw and threw back the shot even before the splashes had settled in the glass, and promptly spluttered out what very little of it didn't go straight down his throat. He'd thought he was prepared, seeing Weston and Charlie's reactions, but nothing could have prepared him for the spasm of his throat, the almost-pain that was searing through him. This was far from the harsh pleasure of the absinthe.

The alcohol seemed to hit him almost as fast as the choke had, and he clutched half at the bar, half at Charlie. "I don't even want to know what that was!" he shouted, and Charlie slapped his back.

"Exactly! Now let's go dance again!"

So they pulled each other right into the middle of the swirl of the dance floor, grinding against each other shamelessly. The last drink had acted as a leveller - despite all having been different levels of drunk before, now all of them were lost in the wild atmosphere. When Charlie pulled him closer than ever, Kurt had no complaints, and when he finally asked, "Are you single?" all Kurt could do was nod.

Charlie's mouth was on his, and Weston was grinding on his ass, and time seemed to twist around him. The dizzy shifting of the alcohol, the friction of a tongue against his own - Charlie's, Weston's, it didn't matter - the tangible thud of the music and the feeling of so many men around him was... indescribable. Kurt could stay here forever, half-aroused and feeling so alive to every sensation that his ears and eyes and skin could provide him. Weston disappeared into someone else's arms, and he had just opened his mouth wider to Charlie, feeling a hand slide down to his ass, their half-hardness becoming slowly more evident through the haze, when he heard his name.

Charlie spun him so he was pressed against Kurt's back, sliding a hand up into Kurt's hair to pull his head back, letting his head rest against Charlie's shoulder and exposing Kurt's throat. "What's up, Sebastian?" They never stopped dancing.

"You guys seem to be having more fun than when I saw you last."

"We sure are." Charlie smacked a hot, open-mouthed kiss under Kurt's ear. Kurt barely noticed it, eyes mostly closed and the world starting to fuzz even more, everything falling out of focus except the feel of Charlie's body, the sound of the music and the shout of Charlie and Sebastian's voices.

"What'd you give him to drink? He wasn't this gone before."

"Spirytus."

"Holy shit. And he swallowed it?" Sebastian's tone was incredulous.

"Hell yes. Kurt and I are going to get on just fine, I think."

"No, no. I should take him home. I don't think he's been this drunk in New York."

"Aw, Seb, I think I can 'take him home' just as well you can." Kurt felt the hand in his hair tighten, the mouth press back to that spot under his ear as he kept moving with the ever-rocking body behind him. "Plus, you're almost as drunk as him."

"Not tonight. Another time, you're more than welcome to take him home."

Kurt wasn't entirely sure about everything going on, but when he felt hands trying to pull him away from the heat of Charlie's body, he whimpered and clung tighter, grinding back harder against Charlie again. "Looks like he doesn't want to leave, Sebby."

Sebastian pressed in closer, pressing his forehead to the side of Kurt's, and shouting directly into his ear. "Kurt! We need to go!" Kurt whined and shook his head, which was all it took to unsteady Sebastian, who once again toppled into Kurt, knocking both him and Charlie slightly sideways. Sebastian laughed and wrapped his arms around both of them, trying to right them.

"Sebastian, man, you're hammered. I don't think you could even get yourself home," Charlie said, laughing too.

"We'll be fine. As soon as Kurt comes with me. Which he will, even if I'm drunk as fuck."

There were hands on Kurt trying to pull him away again. He kept resisting, even as the world got fuzzier still. He draped more of himself over Charlie, not sure if it was drunkenness or tiredness starting to weigh him down more.

"Come on Kurt, if nothing else, I owe you this one." The voices stopped for a moment, and Kurt continued dancing, finding it so easy just to let Charlie's hips be the guide for his, feeling Charlie's hands start to slide over him again. And then Sebastian let out a sharp laugh. "Hey, Charlie, remember how I got Weston off you that first time?"

Charlie's arms tightened around Kurt. "No way. That was a fluke."

"Two rounds next time says I can make it happen again."

Charlie's mouth was on Kurt's neck again briefly, and oh god, it felt so good that Kurt couldn't help if his movements became jerkier, because it only matched the energy shooting out from that spot. "You're on," Charlie then said, his voice still close to Kurt's ear.

Sebastian said something that Kurt couldn't quite hear, but he thought he caught something like "best blackmail material" before someone kissed him hard, starting to wrap hands under his arms and onto his shoulder blades. All to soon the kiss slid to the corner of his lips, before mouthing across his cheek and up his jaw, finding the other spot under his ear just like the one Charlie had been kissing, but this time the mouth _sucked_. Kurt audibly whined, a complete slave to the sensations, and jerked his hips up; he followed easily when the arms tugged him away from Charlie and into the other body.

"Hey Kurt, you want to come home with me?" The voice was Sebastian's, and Kurt, struggling to approach lucidity, took a moment to think about it. And of all the options available to him, going home with Sebastian oddly seemed the best right now. _The safest?_ a voice in his mind echoed at him. He nodded.

Charlie took it with good grace, leaning back up against Kurt to say bluntly, but with a friendly tease in his voice, "You're hot, Kurt. We'll do this again." He then turned to Sebastian and asked, "What happened to the blonde that you were all over?"

"Was a little too insistent he was a top only. I got bored. You might enjoy the challenge, though."

Kurt cracked his eyes open to see Charlie casting a considering eye over the crowd. Charlie said, "You know, I think you're right." He pinched at Sebastian's nipple and the taller boy jolted with surprise. "See you guys around." And then he disappeared.

"You almost ready to go home, Kurt?" The kindness was back in Sebastian's eyes, even with the smirk twisting his lips, and it was as unnerving as ever.

"I think so," Kurt replied. He let Sebastian drag him up to the bar, idly curious, as Sebastian said something and held up three fingers. He then watched with vague amusement as Sebastian shot all three glasses of the clear liquid put in front of him.

"What was that for?" Kurt asked as Sebastian pushed him towards the door.

"If I'm going to be looking after you tonight I need for- for- fortification."

Kurt's protests were cut off when he almost fell flat on his face descending the stairs out of Heat.

The walk to the subway was brief but seemed to have a sobering effect on Kurt; his vision cleared, the world stopped swirling _quite_ as much, and the almost full-body tingle receded back into his lips and hands. If his unsteady path was any indication he was still definitely drunk, but not as completely lost to the alcohol and the surroundings as he had been before. Sebastian, however, probably hadn't needed that third shot. By the time they sat on a bench to wait for the subway, it was dubious as to which one was doing more holding up and guiding.

"Uh, Sebastian, where are we going?"

Sebastian squinted at Kurt, swaying slightly in his seat.

"You live with Rachel, don't you?"

Kurt nodded and almost toppled off the bench himself. Okay. Definitely still drunk.

"My place, then. In, like, eight stops. Just don't let me fall asleep or hit my head or something and we'll be fine."

"Okay." Kurt flopped his head against the brick wall behind him with a slight thud. "I don't think I'd agree to that normally." Each word was a slight struggle, his tongue thick. "I think I'm really drunk."

Sebastian laughed. It seemed like all he ever did was laugh at Kurt. "Yeah, Hummel, you really are. So am I."

"Why did I even come with you tonight? I don't remember."

"Because Charlie wanted you to come. And because Berry is clearly trying to get you laid."

"Yeah. Ever since she left Finn for Brody and Blaine and I broke up she's been trying to get me to 'Make the most of your first year in New York, Kurt. Just try going out with one of the boys from NYADA, Kurt.'" Kurt's voice was a poor imitation of Rachel's. "I'm pretty sure she's just trying to stop me complaining about the cost of ear plugs."

Sebastian laughed even harder, and god, Kurt hadn't meant to share that. Why was he talking so much? This was almost worse than in the club - not able to control himself but now fully aware of ridiculous he was being instead of just lost to it all.

"Well, you did at least try a NYADA boy tonight."

"His mouth. I don't think that was Rachel had in mind." And then they both giggled because they were so, _so_ drunk.

The subway was a hairy mix of trying to stop each other falling with each jolt of movement, grabbing onto poles, and laughter at it all. If this is what being drunk could really be like, then maybe Kurt was okay with it. Eventually Sebastian said, "Oh shit, this is our stop!" and they tumbled off, into the street and to Sebastian's apartment, the cold somehow not feeling as bitter as it had been before Kurt had started the night, despite the later hour.

Sebastian's apartment was dark but warm. "You can afford to keep the heating on when you're not here?" Kurt asked incredulously.

Sebastian shrugged. "Dad can," he said, and pushed Kurt down onto a black leather couch, flicking on a lamp. Kurt snuggled shamelessly into the arm of the couch, barely bothering to look around the apartment, the floppy tiredness he had felt briefly with Charlie hitting him full force now he was somewhere dark and warm. But the head spinning was starting to not feel quite as nice as before and his chest was starting to hurt so there was no way he was actually falling asleep yet.

Sebastian seemed to be struggling with judging the force of gravity as he swung around a narrow countertop into what looked like the kitchen, yanking the door to a fridge open and staggering slightly as the door swung with him still holding on. He grabbed two water bottles and then came back to Kurt, throwing himself onto the couch and then a bottle at Kurt.

"Drink. Slowly, because if you throw up on my stuff I will kill you. But drink."

Kurt did, just a little bit, and then groaned. "I'm starting to not feel so great now."

"Then just, just stay awake long enough to drink all that water and it'll pass." Sebastian, Kurt noted, was struggling just as much as Kurt was - he was slurring and stuttering, and as Sebastian tipped his water bottle up rivulets sprouted either side of his mouth, streaming down his arched-back neck.

"But I'm so tired." As if to prove his point, Kurt nuzzled slightly into the couch.

"So, I don't know, talk to me or something. But drink that fucking water. Trust me."

With a heaving sigh, Kurt started to make idle chatter, asking about Sebastian's time at NYU so far, explaining a little about Vogue and his plans to re-apply for NYADA. Slowly the water in their bottles disappeared and Kurt began to feel a _little_ more sober, though what he lost in alcohol seemed to be being replaced with that weird kind of honesty that only comes from talking with people, even people you don't usually like, into the early hours of the morning.

Eventually Sebastian fixed Kurt with a look, calm in the dark and the drunk and the peaceful late-earliness, and asked, "Why did you and Blaine break up?"

Kurt yawned and said, "That's such a long story. Can I tell it in the morning?"

Sebastian smiled gently and said, "Neither of us are remembering _any_ of this in the morning. I don't feel it like I did before but we are both still smashed."

Kurt stood up and the room swung alarmingly and _whoa_ , Sebastian might be right. "Well, we'll remind ourselves. We'll... write a reminder or something." Spying some pens on the kitchen bench, Kurt grabbed a permanent marker and dropped back onto the couch, much closer to Sebastian than before. He grabbed the other boy's forearm before he could protest and wrote, slowly and carefully but somehow still wonky, _You are having breakfast with Kurt._

Sebastian raised his forearm right up to his eyes and squinted, before shaking his head. "I can't even read that. I'll try again later." He turned to Kurt and said, "My turn."

Kurt shook his head and backed away quickly, saying, "You are _not_ writing on my skin with that."

Sebastian splayed himself against the back of the couch and closed his eyes. "I should take that marker and draw dicks on your face in your sleep. But I just don't have the energy."

"Plus, it doesn't fit with your new, good-boy persona."

Sebastian huffed a half-laugh. "None of this does, Hummel. I should be tearing you apart but instead you're in my apartment because Charlie wanted you to come with us and then got you so drunk I couldn't leave you alone. And now we've been talking for hours. My life is so fucking weird now."

Kurt feels like there is a lot in there he should be protesting, but instead all he asks, "Why exactly _are_ you being so nice? David is one thing, but we..."

Sebastian's head rolled lazily to the side, letting gravity do most of the work. "I want to be a doctor. Like, a _doctor_. Someone who plays with life and death, and unless I'm going to fuck up royally, I have to have some kind of fucking moral code. Because do you want to know when I decided to try for med school, and study pre-med this year?" Kurt shook his head mutely, pressing a hand to his forehead when the world didn't move the way he expected it to. "Two days before David Karofsky tried to kill himself."

Kurt winced, almost reaching out a comforting hand before he'd thought about it. He knew how heavily his own guilt still sat, and if Sebastian's story in the Lima Bean all those months ago had been true, he could imagine the weight it must have put on Sebastian too.

Sebastian ran a hand roughly through his hair. "I had just decided to dedicate my whole life to healing people, and then smack. I was hit head on with the biggest fucking reminder of all the destruction I'd been causing for years. Not just Dave, and not just Blaine's eye. It was so fucking widespread. From being a bitch to you, to ruining the senior years of Warblers like Nick and Thad, to all the dumb ass fucking things in France..." His face was fierce, almost angry, and his eyes were suddenly the clearest and hardest Kurt had seen them since his own senior year. "How the fuck am I supposed to atone for all that? How can I possibly make a good doctor when all I've ever done is break things?"

Kurt was struck almost speechless. "I don't really know," he said honestly, finding it difficult to return Sebastian's gaze. "I think you can really only try to change your actions in the future."

Sebastian closed his eyes, expression slightly sad. "Yeah. Whatever."

Kurt, out of habit, tugged his phone out of his pocket to check for new messages and caught sight of the time. "I am so glad today's a Saturday. It's five in the morning. We should go to sleep."

Slowly Sebastian unwound himself from the couch, pulling some blankets and a pillow from somewhere Kurt was too tired to notice. Kurt's energy drained faster than sand through his fingers, so much so that all he could be bothered to do is toe off his shoes and mumble a garbled thanks to Sebastian before he crashed on his couch, closing his eyes. He heard the sleep-faraway sound of slightly stumbling footsteps, the click of a door shutting somewhere on the side of the apartment Kurt hadn't seen, and then he slipped away from the world.


	2. Part Two

"Fuck. I suppose it was too much to hope that it was all an elaborate figment of my drunken imagination."

The dark mutter dragged the last shadows of sleep off Kurt, and he cracked an eye open to see Sebastian standing at the door to another room, one hand pressed to his forehead.

Kurt wanted to snark back with something suitable for Sebastian, but he was having enormous difficulty thinking through the thick, shaky feeling in his head and chest. "If we both try really hard to pretend, maybe it will be," he half-groaned in reply, rolling onto his back and cringing at the feeling of last night's clothes, stiff against his skin.

"I was doing a pretty good job for awhile," Sebastian said half-conversationally as he shuffled over to the kitchen. "An excellent job of forgetting everything after leaving Heat." Kurt heard a gentle smack against the leather of the couch near his feet, and grudgingly pushed himself into sitting position to see a water bottle halfway to rolling off onto the floor. He grabbed it and gratefully began to drink. "Until I saw my arm, that is. Your penmanship sucks, Kurt."

Sebastian collapsed down next to Kurt and stuck out his forearm, smirking as Kurt squinted at the black, slightly smudged writing there. The words were wonky and varying in size, starting large at Sebastian's elbow and meandering towards a cramped mess, tilting into his wrist. _You are having breakfast with Kurt._

Kurt squinted a little longer at the marked skin, remembering the laughing stumble to the kitchen bench, grabbing the marker to promise Sebastian breakfast... to tell him a story? Oh. To tell him about his breakup with Blaine. Because for some reason, the four-in-the-morning closeness made it seem like that was a good thing to promise. But then, if Kurt thought harder, he could see sharp, clear eyes, feel a huge swell of sympathy, and hear a voice, strong with bitterness, ask _how the fuck am I supposed to atone for all that?_

Kurt wasn't really all that surprised to find that while he too had forgotten things from the time around leaving Heat, those memories were still available. It was the flash of honesty Kurt had seen in the Lima Bean in senior year, multiplied a hundred fold and laid out before him, tugging on his empathy as much as his sympathy with their shared guilt. It was the compelling pull of understanding, almost more than Kurt's promise to Sebastian for a story, that set a little voice in the back of Kurt's head whispering that Kurt kind of owed him an honest answer in return.

The only indication Kurt actually gave of what he remembered, however, was an affronted accusation. "You threatened to draw on my face in my sleep."

"Dicks, if I remember. And who's to say I didn't?"

Kurt almost jumped, but managed to restrain himself and just shoot Sebastian a patronising stare instead. "I lived with Finn Hudson, and by extension Noah Puckerman. I have a sixth sense for knowing when stupid boys are trying to do stupid things to me."

"And yet, you were _more_ than happy to let Charlie have his way with you."

Kurt couldn't push down the heat he felt rising into his cheeks at that reminder. But he's single, and it's not like Charlie was hideous - the opposite in fact, from what he can remember - so what's the harm?

"And Weston. And me."

Sebastian's grin turned gleeful and Kurt almost dropped his water bottle.

"When did I do anything with _you_?" Kurt asked, his voice fast and a little shrill as he frantically searched his memory.

Sebastian laughed, still grinning. "Even drunk, I knew this would be excellent blackmail material. You refused to let me pry you off Charlie to take you home, so I had to resort to extraordinary means."

"But that means you instigated whatever happened," Kurt pointed out somewhat smugly, still searching for the memory of it among the huge blur of last night.

"Because it was a bet. Charlie owes me an extra two rounds next time." Sebastian paused, becoming very slightly less teasing. "Plus, he wanted to _take you home_. I wasn't sure if you were okay with that. All your bravado aside, I know that at least in Ohio you didn't get drunk a lot."

Kurt tilted his head and regarded Sebastian quietly for a moment, watching discomfort settle around the boy's shoulders. "You're a lot more responsible than you used to be," he said quietly. "Why is that?"

Sebastian repeated none of the things he had said the night before about wanting to be a doctor or the atonement he seemed to need. Instead, Sebastian answered with equal quiet. "I wasn't kidding when I said that it's all fun and games until it's not. I tread more carefully now."

Kurt could have said something teasing or mocking back, and if he was honest every instinct still pushed him to; but, as he watched Sebastian's shoulders tighten even further, Kurt started to get the feeling that even with his change of heart, Sebastian wasn't often this honest with anyone. As much as Kurt loved New York, it was a harsh and unforgiving place to people without walls. There was a softness about people from places like Ohio that was difficult to find here, and Kurt suspected Sebastian's rant about atonement had been building up for awhile. Where Kurt has built his strengths around unflinchingly showing himself to the world, the bad and the good, Sebastian was... selective. Eventually, all Kurt said was, "Thank you."

Sebastian didn't really acknowledge it, just half-nodded and then jumped up. "If you put that stuff back in the cupboard, I'll grab you a towel so you can shower," Sebastian said, turning away. "And then you owe me breakfast and a story." He smirked at Kurt over his shoulder.

They ended up at a coffee house half an hour later after establishing that neither of them was feeling ready to tackle much more than coffee and maybe a bagel. Kurt was grateful for the winter chill and the poor heating inside the store; his winter coat all but hid any signs that he was wearing yesterday's clothes. They seated themselves at a slightly rickety wooden table and buried themselves in their coffees for a while; Kurt took his time appreciating how the smell and then the taste and buzz wiped away the heavy, shaky feeling of his hangover.

"Well, Kurt, you owe me a story," Sebastian eventually said, breaking the silence, one that had almost started to be comfortable. After a moment's pause, he continued, saying, "Or is the tale all too sordid for your blushing sensibilities to bring it to light?"

Kurt sighed and tried for a second longer to bury himself in the scent and steam of his coffee. "I suppose you've earned it," he said. "What level of detail do you want?"

Sebastian looked down, his eyes flicking up to Kurt and his mouth tilting in consideration. "I'll be honest - note it, it probably won't happen again for a long time - and tell you that I did talk to Blaine. In passing; just enough to know that he wasn't feeling like he fit at McKinley, and was considering going back to Dalton. I, of course, encouraged that _wholeheartedly_. Once a Warbler always a Warbler, right?" The smug smile was back. Kurt tried his best not to let it rile him up, something mostly subconscious noting it hadn't affected him until it was associated with Blaine. "But I wondered if that had something to do with your break up. Given the amount of blackmail material I now have on you, I don't think it will hurt me to admit that I was curious."

"It was a factor. Not the main one, though," Kurt said. He tried to keep his tone as emotionless as possible. "I'm sure you've probably noticed - and exploited - the fact that Blaine loves communication. With everyone. All the time. It's his biggest weapon and weakness. So, I don't think either of us were surprised, deep down, when after a few months it became clear that he wasn't suited to a long distance relationship." Such a clinical way to describe what had been such a messy, painful thing. It had been two months now. It had gotten better, Kurt wasn't denying that, but it probably shouldn't still have this much of a sting to it. "It's not a point of blame or even really a fault, just a personality trait. Especially from his boyfriend, Blaine needs more communication in all its forms. More time, more talking, the body language and the physical closeness - don't smirk at me like that, Sebastian Smythe, you know very well that wasn't what I meant." Though, Kurt admitted privately to himself, it was at least a little bit that. "A long distance relationship for him is like tying himself to a ghost. After seeing how _hard_ he was still trying to make it work, despite so clearly not getting what he needed, I wasn't even really upset to let him go to find someone who can give him that."

Kurt stopped to take a deep draw from his now-cooling drink, taking quick stock of Sebastian's reactions. Nothing else was likely to have surprised him more than what he got - complete and utter reserve. It was a relief. He'd told this story a few times now - to Rachel in full, a briefer version for Mercedes, and ever briefer one still for his dad, and just enough to stop Finn from hunting Blaine down on principle and assure him no one was angry with anyone. Everyone had had at least some points of judgement or interjection or criticism or opinion. Sebastian was the first person to just let Kurt _talk_ , and it was what spurred him into picking up the rest of the narrative.

"The other side is more what you know. At the start of my senior year Blaine moved to McKinley, and he said it wasn't for me, but we both knew it was. He's struggled a lot with that this year now I'm gone. Weirdly, it was winning senior class president that seemed to be the tipping point for him - he told me that everything he'd done at McKinley was for me. And I was gone. Sometimes, I think he even felt like I'd abandoned him. It was so hard for him to find a place there for _himself_ , and he almost didn't. Say what you want to about New Directions, but it was eventually them that helped him find his place. The Warblers never managed that for me at Dalton."

"I always forget that you were a Warbler too, once," Sebastian murmured. "It's just so... regimented. Especially if you're not out in front. I can't picture it."

"Exactly." Kurt's smile was a little grim. "Well, glee clubs that neither of us are still a member of aside, Blaine had always planned to come out to New York once he graduated. Try to get into NYADA. But after all that, we were both forced to wonder what it would do to both him and us if that happened again. It -" Kurt stops. Swallows. "I can't think of anything worse. So, at the point _when_ Blaine came to New York became an _if_ , we broke up. Between him not getting what he needed and without the promise of him being here in the future... simple. We promised to try again if Blaine moves to New York."

"This is all very Blaine-centric," Sebastian said, still passive. "What about you?"

Another new response to telling this story, and from Sebastian. Another surprise. "I'm still hoping Blaine will choose to come to New York next year. But I'm no longer relying on it."

Sebastian nodded and looked down at his coffee. He was still relatively reserved, not saying anything, and it was starting to unnerve Kurt, who stiffened his spine slightly and let out a sardonic laugh. "You were right last night. Why on earth are we talking? This really is weird."

That brought Sebastian back to life. "We were never afraid to talk to each other," he said, his smirk well and truly in place. "Since I pinky swore to the flying spaghetti monster to be a nice boy, and, as your mohawked friend pointed out, you take the high road - then you add one of my friends trying to get into your pants and plenty of alcohol - it's not really a surprise, Kurt."

Kurt's phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see a calendar reminder. _Skype with Blaine_ , in half an hour. He almost cursed and looked up apologetically - _apologetically? -_ at Sebastian. "I totally forgot the time, I'm sorry. I have to go." He tightened his scarf, gathered all their rubbish to toss, and stood up. "All our bickering aside, just - thank you for taking me to your place last night. And," he took a deep breath, "everything, I guess." Sebastian nodded tightly. "I'll see you around?"

"Yeah, I suppose you will," Sebastian said casually, getting ready to leave himself. "No doubt I'll catch you around Callbacks or somewhere similar. Charlie won't let last night lie, if nothing else." The glint in Sebastian's eye spoke volumes on how much Sebastian had enjoyed 'winning' against the NYADA boy.

Kurt hesitated for a second, the performer in him feeling like there should be something _more_ to conclude the most bizarre fourteen hours he'd had in a _long_ time, but in the end he just waved and dashed out of the coffee house in search of a subway.

He wasn't _very_ late by the time he was back in his apartment and signing into Skype. Blaine video called him almost immediately and Kurt accepted, bursting into breathless apologies the second he saw Blaine's face. Blaine cut him off almost immediately with an amused smile and said, "It's fine. Rachel told me you might be late, since _someone_ didn't come home last night." Teasing, but under it, the hurt, almost always the hurt. God. It never did get much better.

"Not like that," Kurt responded immediately, flushing. "Oh god no. I just went to a club with some people I met at Callbacks since Rachel and Brody were being, ugh, Rachel and Brody, and then I was drunk, Blaine, _so_ drunk so I stayed and talked with one of them and slept on their couch and-" Something was stopping Kurt from mentioning Sebastian. He wasn't entirely sure what, he just instinctively knew that every time all three of them were involved, in any way, things were so much messier than any combination of the two. Thankfully, Blaine had cut him off again.

"I was just teasing, Kurt," Blaine said with a soft smile. "It's fine, really. I wasn't doing anything, anyway. But," and his face, so beautiful, softened into a sad, self-deprecating smile, "is it alright if I don't want the details? I'm sorry. I just..."

"No, it's fine. Really." _It's easier for me not to give them._

"I feel like such a bad friend," Blaine half-whispered, tilting his head down towards the keyboard. "And a hypocrite. I just can't."

"It's fine, Blaine. I meant it. Anyway, forget my night. How are _you_?"

"Cheerios is fun. You were right about Sue being crazy and the girls being not much better, but under it all it's still fun. Regionals is coming up soon!" Blaine tries to muster up his usual bright smile even though they both know he wants to be talking about glee regionals, not cheerleading; but that's not an option any more. "And glee is... rebuilding. Even though I don't think half the club has forgiven Marley yet. We'll get there."

Kurt could still see that _look_ in the back of Blaine's eyes, as almost always now, the one that appeared the day Blaine had realised that he was at McKinley, in Ohio, and Kurt had left him there. The one with very little blame, but mostly just stunned bewilderment and fear, like a child who hasn't entirely processed that their parents have left them alone in an unfamiliar place, but is one second from crying because they're just so scared and hurt. The look that Blaine finding his place at McKinley hadn't entirely taken away, because it was so much more than just leaving him at a school. It was leaving him in a _life_. The look that was the reason, Kurt knew, that Blaine never answered Kurt's 'how are you' directly.

"And how are your college applications going?"

The atmosphere, thick and heavy as it was, sunk over Kurt like deep water as Blaine stared even harder at his hands. "I, um, sent the last off this week."

"Give me the complete list?"

"All up, that's NYADA, two schools at NYU, Carnegie Mellon, CCM at University of Cincinnati, Elon, and OSU as back up."

"Seven schools. Not taking any chances, I see," Kurt said softly, half-smiling. _Learning from my mistakes_. "And, hey, three out of seven here isn't bad. I like my chances."

"Kurt," Blaine choked immediately, like Kurt just threw the second last thing the dam wall can handle, and it's buckling; like one more stone will make it come crashing down, drowning everything.

"I'm sorry," Kurt said, trying to make his tone soothing and immediately regretting his choice of words.

"It never gets easier, Kurt. With... I... Do you... It feels like we never got our goodbye, with you unable to come home for Thanksgiving or Christmas." Everything about Blaine looked so small, shrinking, except his eyes, which were huge and stabbing straight into Kurt as they filled with crystal tears. "I know we need to be broken up for now, I do, but I feel like if we just had one more day to properly-"

"No, Blaine." It was Kurt's turn to cut Blaine off now, still so gentle and choking up himself. "I know you're a communicator and breaking up this way has been so hard for you, but it's never going to be easy. We just have to... let go."

"I don't know how. Especially not when it feels like I have this huge, flammable future in front of me, with three sevenths of a chance that I'll let you go just to have to win you back again... I don't know how to _start_ letting go."

"You'll never have to _win_ me back again. If it's right, I'll be there," Kurt said, able to be firm at least on this. But then his voice dropped low, and he leaned even closer to his computer screen like it made any difference. "But I don't think I know how to let go either." He put his hand up to the screen, knowing how ridiculous it looked on the other side but having to do it anyway. Blaine matched him finger for finger.

"I am so sorry," Kurt whispered, and tears he didn't want slid down the side of his cheeks. "Letting go or not, I love you. That doesn't change."

* * *

 

The next person to fall into Kurt's lap did it with a little more grace and a lot more intention.

It was a fortnight after the last occurrence, another Friday night with Rachel, Brody and half of NYADA. This time there _was_ karaoke, though with the stipulation that it be upbeat, if not dance material. Rachel had insisted on going, maintaining that it was the best tool she had to keep her talent sharp, given the limited performing opportunities afforded to freshmen. Kurt privately scoffed at that; given they were in New York, where every street had at least one bar or café with an open mic night, he suspected it was less about the performing opportunities and more about trying to intimidate her classmates. Rachel had also insisted Kurt come, and this time perform; again, Kurt scoffed, though more outwardly. If he was planning on reauditioning next year the practice would almost definitely help, but he didn't want to become _that guy_ \- the one hanging around NYADA haunts, insisting on drawing attention to himself and competing with the NYADA students all year, only to fail again at trying to become one of them.

He was, however, still interested to meet some of Brody's seemingly endless stream of friends, all who seemed happy enough to relieve Kurt of third wheel status. He was also ostensibly supporting Rachel, who had the microphone when someone dropped onto his thighs and flung an arm around his neck.

"Kurt. Hi," Charlie said, grinning down at him. "You're very difficult to find."

Kurt eyed Charlie incredulously and tried to shove him off his lap, craning his head around the boy to see Rachel.

"It's only been two weeks, Charlie. Get out of my way, I'm trying to watch Rachel."

"Rachel Berry? Tibideaux's new pet? _Why?_ "

"I'd protest that if I didn't know Rachel would be more than proud of the label. Because she's my best friend, you ass, now _move_." Kurt shoved Charlie again, but the boy's arms were disgustingly strong and he clung to Kurt's neck far too tightly.

Charlie obligingly leant to the side, allowing Kurt an unobscured of the stage, but also putting an annoyingly distracting view of Charlie's chest and arm to the immediate left. They were wrapped in a tight black v neck which showed off a dancer's build, and, combined with the warmth pressing down Kurt's chest and across his lap, were doing nothing for Kurt's concentration.

"Ah, I should have known. A little, lost hag to go with our little, lost gay?" Charlie asked, grinning and sliding his fingers under the collar of Kurt's shirt, which earned him a reflex slap to the hand. Charlie bent closer, scratched the pads of his fingers over the back of Kurt's neck a few times, and said, "I'm just trying to play."

Rachel finished her song and Kurt bit back a dozen scathing replies to applaud her instead. Even clapping proved difficult, however, with the boy between his arms - the movement ended up being awkward and mostly ineffectual, with the exception of pulling Charlie even further into his chest.

"Starting the competition without me, Charlie?" a voice asked from behind Kurt, before Sebastian appeared to drop into Rachel's chair.

"Competition?" Kurt raised an eyebrow.

Charlie's grin, which had been self-satisfied from the instant he'd sat in Kurt's lap, broadened even further. "I've talked Sebastian into going double or nothing on our bet."

Kurt resisted the urge to splutter, having an inkling where this might be going. "Do I even want to know?" he asked.

"Knowing your attitude to all things _fun_ , Kurt, I don't think so," Sebastian replied, eyes sparkling with mirth. "Just know that those two rounds Charlie owes me are on the line, he's going to lose, and you're going to enjoy it."

"Especially since we've both been egging each other on the last four times we've gone out," Charlie added. "Like I said, you're hard to find."

"You've been out _four_ times in two weeks? Aren't you busy with school?" Kurt asked incredulously.

"Learning how to work hung over is a part of your theatre education, Kurt," Charlie chided. "It's also the same for large parts of the fashion industry, so if you're going to keep working at Vogue you'd better get used to it."

They were interrupted by an indignant Rachel Berry, who had come back to the table clearly expecting praise. "Sebastian Smythe, get out of my seat!" she demanded, and slapped Sebastian on the back of the head.

Charlie laughed and whispered to Kurt, "I think I'm liking her more by the second."

Kurt idly watched Rachel and Sebastian snipe at each other for a moment. Rachel had never been particularly good at coming up against Sebastian, since she tended to use emotion and the sheer momentum of her personality to win arguments instead of wit. It clearly wasn't going her way tonight, because her eyes were flashing and Brody was sitting unobtrusively to her right looking very amused. As her voice rose, Kurt heard her say accusingly, "You still owe me for that picture of Finn!"

The flash of pain that darted across Sebastian's eyes and brow was lost on Rachel, but not on Kurt, who'd mastered the subtlety of minimising expressions that you'd rather hide in junior year. Charlie had started to relax, so one good shove caught him off guard and fighting to regain his balance as he was forced of Kurt's lap; Kurt then rose to his feet before Charlie could protest and grabbed Sebastian's elbow.

"We'll be going now, I think," Kurt said, tugging a little harder on Sebastian, whose face was now impassive as he let Kurt pull at him. Kurt grabbed his coat from the back of his chair as Charlie started to head towards the door. Turning to Rachel, Kurt wrapped her in a one-armed squeeze, asking, "You are okay to get home, aren't you?"

Rachel was eyeing up all three boys curiously but smiled and said, "Of course. Go! Have fun!" and tugged his lapel straighter.

Kurt rolled his eyes and said, "No need to report me to Blaine, I promise I'll come home this time."

"I wouldn't count on it!" Charlie tossed over his shoulder.

Kurt said goodbye to Rachel and then turned, striding through the crowded little bar to catch up to Sebastian and Charlie. "Where's Weston?" he asked.

"Not with us, not tonight," Charlie replied, pushing Kurt through the door. "Tonight is just you, me and Sebastian." And with a slightly predatory glint to his eyes he led Kurt forward and into the night once more.

Kurt was determined to not get as drunk this time, so once they got to Heat he drank the first two things handed to him but refused the third. Sebastian looked very amused by Kurt's refusal, but raised one shoulder in a half-shrug and drank it himself.

Dancing was at once better and worse without so much liquor coursing through his system. Sebastian and Charlie were clearly on their way to happily wasted, both trying to pull Kurt close and grind against him. They surrounded Kurt with laugher and warmth and _boy_ in a way that he probably shouldn't be enjoying so much, especially with Sebastian involved. Kurt revelled in clarity and intensity of all the detail, soaking it up in a way that was such a beautiful contrast to the hazy wash of sensation of last time. But it was much more difficult to lose himself to the movement of another person's hips and follow along; he felt wooden under Charlie's hands, and was struggling to see how he could be anything like the person who had slid into the relative hedonism of the group before.

Once upon a time, Kurt would have probably gone to sit at the bar and stayed there rather than try and fail. But so much of _Kurt Hummel_ as he had once been felt like he'd been left behind in Lima, and Kurt wasn't necessarily sure that was a bad thing. He tried his best to play along for another fifteen minutes before Charlie and Sebastian dragged him back to the bar, and when Charlie handed him a glass of something mostly transparent and pale green, Kurt eyed it suspiciously for a lot less time than he once would have.

"You're so fucking cute," Charlie said, sliding his arm around Kurt's waist. "It's a margarita; it's sour. You'll like it."

And really, it was as simple as these little things, wasn't it? People had always handed drinks to the Kurt of Lima telling him it was sweet, so he'd like it. But here there were people like Charlie, in a club a million steps up from Scandals, telling him that maybe there could be something different to him.

As he raised the glass to his lips and swallowed, relishing the sharp, clean taste of the lime, he met Sebastian's eyes and couldn't help but wonder if Sebastian could be like Charlie; with all the newness to him, if he too could see the redefinition.

The margarita and the realisation, while by no means getting Kurt drunk, loosened him up enough that he could start really moving when they got back to the pit of dancers. Charlie picked up on the change easily, grinning and placing himself squarely in front of Kurt, crowding close so his entire line of sight was filled with the NYADA boy. Sebastian was playfully trying to shove Charlie out of the way but failing. Then the music shifted to a new song - darker and not the DJ's interpretation of a top forty hit, for once - and the mood of their trio shifted with it. Kurt felt struck bold by it and pressed a little closer, dancing a little dirtier, and turned himself slightly to let Sebastian back in, sliding an arm over his shoulder. Every action felt a little more like a goodbye to the spectre of Kurt sitting at the bar with his Shirley Temple.

Charlie was the first one to push things any further, bending down on the roll of the beat to fit his mouth to Kurt's, conceding space to Sebastian in favour of sliding a hand up the side of Kurt's neck and into the shorter hair on the back of Kurt's head. Kurt let their mouths and tongues slide together, enjoying the sensations and the simple thrill of getting to kiss someone so clearly attractive. When the song changed again Charlie backed off a little to catch his breath and dance harder as the song demands it, a contradiction that somehow makes sense. Kurt lost himself a little more to the darkness and the coloured lights and the beat, feeling like they were sinking into his very skin, getting him drunk in a different, more thrilling way than alcohol. More audacious than ever, Kurt turned his face up to Sebastian and raised his eyebrow.

Sebastian grasped the meaning of Kurt's raised eyebrow sooner than Kurt thought he would. He moved closer, surveying Kurt's face with an amused tilt to his mouth, and Kurt gave him only boldness and challenge. When Sebastian pressed himself into a kiss, Kurt felt Sebastian laughing slightly under his lips.

The night passed quickly, far more quickly than Kurt thought it would, with his limited drinking only to counterbalance what he had burned off dancing. They danced and made out in almost equal measure, and the kisses passed between them so freely Kurt of Lima would have been near-shrieking; in the context of the moment, though, it made so much sense to extend the dancing of their bodies, the way their limbs and torsos fit together, up to their mouths. Kurt almost forgot anything about a bet between Sebastian and Charlie, neither of them making an overt move, happy to just live out the night. They didn't even restrict their kisses to Kurt; Kurt bore witness to a few between the friends, still more nipping teeth and clash than any deep connection, and a brief, almost incidental slide between them and the few brave others that approached from the crowd around them.

Eventually, Charlie's hand slid from the tantalising brushes of neck-back-waist-hips-ass to Kurt's stomach, brushing back and forth for a few moments in a way that gave Kurt a whole-body shudder. Charlie used his other hand, drifting on the hairline on Kurt's neck, to pull his head close, and asked, "So, are you coming home with me tonight?"

Kurt grabbed the hand that was now starting to inch slightly lower than his stomach, down over the waistband of his jeans, skin catching slightly on the button. "I could," Kurt said, feeling far too _not_ like Lima Kurt to really let it throw him the way he knew it should. "But I won't sleep with someone who isn't my boyfriend."

Charlie regarded Kurt with a vaguely amused tilt to his mouth, looking like he was about to call Kurt cute all over again. Kurt met him eye to eye, trying to put the same amusement in his own face.

"Everyone needs a line," Kurt said. "This is mine."

Charlie laughed slightly, looking at Kurt like he was something unusual but enjoyably so. "That's a very Ohio line for a New York world, babe."

Sebastian knocked Charlie's shoulder slightly and said, "What you mean is, he has more morals than the two of us put together, and _you_ don't attract many of those." Sebastian's voice was teasing but, in the on-and-off glint of the lights, Kurt thought he could see a hardness in Sebastian's eyes. _It's all fun and games until it's not_ , Sebastian echoed in Kurt's head yet again.

Charlie laughed and nodded. "Suppose so," he said, conceding. He pulled Kurt a few inches closer to add, "Doesn't mean I'm not going to enjoy shifting your line for you."

Kurt bristled very slightly, but knew the tease was meant as just that - a tease - even if there was a touch of seriousness to it. He danced a little longer, happy to grind up against Charlie as hard as before and enjoying the rocking rhythm of it. But then he tipped his head up to Sebastian, pressed his lips against Sebastian's ear so close he could feel the delicate whorls of cartilage under his lips, and asked, "So, do you want to win tonight?"

Sebastian tightened the arm that had been slowly snaking its way around Kurt's chest, tugging Kurt back against his chest a little more. "Are you going to help me put on a convincing show?" he asked teasingly, keeping the words close between them so Charlie couldn't hear. As relaxed as they had all been tonight, Sebastian's tone implied that he didn't really think Kurt would.

But Kurt smiled impishly up at the boy, bit his bottom lip and said, "I'm having fun. So sue me."

Sebastian laughed, gave Kurt a second or two to change his mind or brace himself, and then leaned in. They were gentle at first, more gentle than they'd been all night. But as Kurt felt the heat spread across his face, felt Sebastian's hands and arms catch him a little more firmly, he threw himself in - after all, it was a show, wasn't it? So Kurt was the one to thrust his tongue into Sebastian's mouth, and to drag it along the underside of Sebastian's; he fought back when Sebastian tried to force the kiss back into Kurt's mouth, and was the one to trace curving, teasing lines along Sebastian's teeth and the roof of his mouth as a declaration of victory. Kurt was the one to scrape his teeth, lightly enough but with apparent intent, along Sebastian's bottom lip as they pulled away.

During the kiss Sebastian had turned Kurt in his arms until they were pressed chest to chest and Charlie was behind them. Charlie whistled lowly, and said, "Damn. You don't seem so sure about that line right this second, Kurt."

Sebastian smirked at Charlie, and asked Kurt, "You ready to leave?" Kurt nodded, turning between the two boys to make a way out for himself. He let Sebastian grab his hand as they both started to move from the crowd, trying not to laugh at the note of triumph in Sebastian's voice as he told Charlie, "Well, we're going, so we'll see you later. You better have those four rounds lined up next time."

Kurt was almost expecting Charlie to be a little put out, but he just laughed, taking it in his stride. Nothing had stopped Charlie laughing yet, Kurt observed idly. "Just you wait, Seb. I'm picking the drinks." Charlie let them go with a wave, and by the time Kurt and Sebastian had made it out of the dance pit, Charlie had already magically conjured another guy into his arms.

"How is that even possible?" Kurt asked Sebastian, tilting his head in Charlie's direction.

"This is NYADA's third home, the one that's kept a secret from the girls," Sebastian replied.

They grabbed their checked coats and stepped out into the street; there was still a line to get into Heat, to Kurt's surprise. They walked for a moment in what Kurt thought was the direction of the subway, but he was letting Sebastian lead so didn't really mind. Sebastian eventually said, "Damn, Hummel, I don't know if I should say you've changed, or if you were always like this and just keeping it wrapped up under all those monstrous sweaters and jackets."

Kurt smiled serenely and decided to give Sebastian this one. "I've changed," he said easily. And it was true. It wasn't just the drinks or letting pretty boys kiss him without it meaning anything. The more he thought about it, the more easily the full extent of everything fell on him, as gently as his blankets settling over him to sleep. So many of the things that had been a part of him in Lima were slipping away - from the way he had still held himself taut when walking down a corridor in senior year, to the idea he just had to hang on for one year and then he could have Blaine and NYADA. The core of him was still there, but the things that had shaped it were disappearing, and he felt like he should be panicking, but he wasn't.

He _was_ changing, and he wasn't really sure what he was changing into right now, but he was enjoying it more than he'd thought he would.

"What on earth are you thinking about so hard?"

Kurt started when he realised that Sebastian was staring at him, and they'd walked a fair way. "Change," he said, and then skipped ahead of Sebastian, turning around so he was walking backwards but could look full into Sebastian's face, tilting his head teasingly. "I may have changed, but not nearly as much as you. We've been out twice now and I haven't seen you have a single twenty minute relationship." He pulled an overly shocked face, putting his hand over his mouth.

"Fuck you," Sebastian said, and stepped close enough to Kurt to shove at his shoulder. Kurt, who was already slightly off balance from walking backwards, screeched a little as he righted himself. Sebastian laughed harder than he'd done all night and pulled Kurt down into the subway.

Sebastian followed Kurt to his platform, and asked, "If I wait with you here, are you okay to get home once your line comes?"

Kurt nodded, still a little touched despite every sign that kept appearing to remind him of how responsible Sebastian had become. "What about you?" Kurt asked, and Sebastian actually smiled.

"I'll be fine. I think I'll just take a cab, since I don't live in such a miserably faraway place as Bushwick," Sebastian said with a mock shudder. "Will living in Bushwick really be worth it to see your name in the bright lights of Broadway one day?" he continued. "Or, rather, off-off-Broadway?"

"Maybe," Kurt said without thinking, and then his brain caught up to him as Sebastian looked slightly shocked.

"What do you mean, maybe?" he asked.

Kurt bit his lower lip for a moment, and then said, "If you tell Rachel, I will gut your entire wardrobe faster than you can blink and string it off your balcony. But, I..." He took a deep breath. "I actually _really_ like working at Vogue. In fashion in general. It's... a harder choice than I'd first thought."

"Raise your hand if you're surprised," Sebastian said, deadpan, as the faint sounds of Kurt's train started to echo down the tunnel. "As fascinated I am by your struggle to choose between the two ultimate gay clichés, it appears your story is being cut short." Sebastian's face softened very slightly, and he said, "But I might be willing to suffer the rest of the tale, for the entertaining-train-wreck of it all. Like, Sunday morning after I've had _at least_ two coffees."

Kurt fixed Sebastian with a look of suspicion as a carriage ground to a halt in front of him. "Is this a part of some big, evil plan? I know too many of your secrets, so now you have to have too many of mine. And then we end up being friends because it's either that or we have to kill each other."

"Damn, you caught me," Sebastian drawled, and nudged Kurt in the direction of the now-open doors. "Well, be a good boy and help me with my nefarious plot. I'll see you Sunday."

"Sunday," Kurt finally agreed, with a nod, and then Sebastian raised a hand in farewell, and the doors closed, the subway taking Kurt home.


	3. Part Three

Kurt met up with Sebastian for coffee or food more than once over the passing weeks, taking their turns to snipe at each other in a way they couldn't their colleagues, bosses or professors. They both smiled a little wider with every time they did, especially as it became less about them and more about just having to let off steam - at least in Kurt's mind. And after the bulk of the needling was out of the way, they talked. Ranted about the things that got to them in the day to day, the tiny little ways in which Ohio sometimes won out over New York, or gossiped about the world of NYADA, which both of them knew far too much about for not being enrolled there. Sebastian also casually dragged Kurt out with a rotating group of NYADA boys on a semi-regular basis, almost always including Charlie and Weston, but also others from all four years of the school.

Eventually Rachel stopped trying to haul Kurt out to Callbacks, but occasionally ran into him there instead. When Sebastian showed up at the apartment straight from NYU, still smelling of formaldehyde, Rachel started to let him in with a huff instead of trying to refuse him entry. She couldn't see the slight wildness to Sebastian's eyes after an afternoon in the anatomy labs the way Kurt could, but for every profound thing that Kurt knew about Sebastian, Rachel saw the edges by just being _around_ for so much. Kurt came to understand, from a dozen throwaway comments slowly pieced together, that Sebastian struggled being around so much death in the anatomy labs when the aim of medicine was to give life; Rachel just knew to get out of Sebastian's way for at least an hour when he stank of the chemicals used to preserve the dissected specimens.

The presence of Sebastian settled in Kurt's mind more and more, becoming a storm crashing through Kurt's skull every time they were together. And the more Kurt learned about Sebastian, in all his complexity - that he hypothetically believed polyamorous relationships could work but he'd be far too jealous for it to ever work for _him_ , that his mother was a much more powerful businesswoman than his father but she had died when Sebastian was eleven - the more the storm grew. It got wilder, and made Kurt crazier, until eventually it expanded so much it couldn't fit in Kurt's head anymore. And then it slid down his throat to choke him, boiled over his shoulders, pounded against his ribs, and before Kurt had even realised it, settled in his heart. And the lightning crashed inside his heart and the thunder shook it and god, Kurt was _screwed._

They'd kissed less often the more they'd gone out clubbing. Not just Kurt and Sebastian, but Kurt and everyone. It was still pleasant, and felt like a natural extension of their dancing the same way it had that first night. But the novelty had worn off and it wasn't foreplay for him the way it was for the others; he was also kind of friends with these guys, so it was almost funny to kiss friends like that unless he was properly drunk. And while all of them were just as happy to echo Kurt's laugh into his mouth as they were to deepen the kiss, Kurt couldn't help but pout a little at the way they always told him afterwards, ever so fondly, how cute he was.

But tonight Kurt was drunk again, drunker than he'd been since that very first night out. He usually refused to reach that point, for the sake of his wallet and safety; however, tonight Rachel and Brody had taken over the apartment, and he was out in a big group of six or seven, most of whom kept handing Kurt drinks. And, if he was going to be perfectly honest, he was kind of hoping that if he was drunk enough Sebastian would just let him crash on his couch. Because for all their teasing and sniping, and despite all the jokes Kurt had made about Sebastian's evil plans, they were friends now. And it wouldn't have been the first time Sebastian had judged that Kurt wasn't safe enough to go home alone. Kurt tried not to think about that too often, because the slight weirdness and surprise never faded every time he did. _Friends_. With _Sebastian_.

And, god, wanting more, even if he could barely admit it to himself unless he was drunk like this. But Sebastian looked so good tonight in that short sleeved button down, catching Kurt's eye over a shoulder...

Long gone was any awkwardness when dancing, with stranger or friend, and Kurt had well and truly thrown himself into the night. Over the weeks, Sebastian had slowly let Kurt stray further from his side; never outside of the group of whoever they were with, pulling him away from strangers with a possessiveness that was nothing short of amusing, but further nonetheless. At first Kurt had enjoyed it, getting to meet so many different guys, and shamelessly flirting with a few of them if he was going to be perfectly honest. But ever since Kurt had realised how deep his new feelings for Sebastian had settled the space upset him a little, with that kind of childish jealousy that seemed to reappear every time he had a crush.

When he'd first noticed the crackles of lightning in his heart, it had taken all of his self-control not to rip the boy Sebastian had been hooking up with out of his arms. They'd been in a bar that night, a new place that Kurt hadn't been before; Sebastian had quickly found a stranger, and not much later, had found a bathroom with said stranger. Kurt had barely been able to contain his disgust, though it was one of the admittedly very few times Sebastian had done much with, well, anyone while Kurt was there. And at the end of the night Sebastian had still dragged Kurt out of Charlie's grasp and into the street, and had inexplicably kept an arm wrapped around Kurt's waist almost the entire time home.

Kurt had questioned Sebastian later, in the hush of Sebastian's apartment, why he so rarely hooked up when Kurt was around. Sebastian had looked away for the longest time, and then eventually, in a very roundabout way, muttered something to Kurt about atonement. Kurt had suggested, very gently, that if Sebastian had needed to atone for how he'd once treated Kurt by looking after him that he'd more than paid it off by now.

Sebastian had looked at Kurt with sadder eyes than he'd ever seen from the boy and kissed him on the forehead. He'd whispered, forming words against Kurt's skin, "It's never enough. Not for what you deserve."

Kurt had been touched, but forced to write it off as one of those weird, drunken-middle-of-the-night things that seemed to happen in the dark. Lord knew Sebastian opening up to him that very first night had been one of them.

Tonight, though, and maybe the night before that as well - unless Kurt was making it all up in his head - Sebastian was not letting Kurt particularly far out of his sight at all. Charlie had monopolised Kurt for the past ten minutes or so, persisting as always in his mission to move Kurt's line. A night out wasn't complete unless Charlie, always with great humour, made at least one play. But tonight, just as Charlie started locking in on Kurt's eyes the way he usually did before he went in for a kiss, Sebastian grabbed Kurt out of Charlie's arms and all but yanked Kurt into his chest.

Charlie lifted an eyebrow at the display, wrapping a hand gently around Kurt's wrist as though daring Sebastian to make a battle of it. Kurt felt Sebastian shift slightly behind him, muscles tensing, and whatever Charlie saw on Sebastian's face evidently made a point, because the next second he laughed, slightly shorter and sharper than usual, and stepped away to join a group of NYADA boys practically writhing together.

Kurt turned around to face Sebastian and snaked an arm around his neck, starting to dance. He was feeling _good_ right now and Sebastian was _looking_ good, so it took even less shame than usual to crowd up close to the strong body in front of him. "What was that for?" he asked, pushing Sebastian's hair off of his forehead with a teasing smile. "It's only Charlie. He wasn't serious about anything."

"Yeah, that's what you think," said Sebastian, dropping into the dance beat. "Charlie never acts like he's serious about anything. But trust me, with the persistence he's shown you? He's dead serious about 'moving your line'."

"He probably just knows I'm too drunk to care right now!" Kurt said with a laugh. He had a feeling his filter had gone on vacation after that second shot of Spirytus.

"Is that so?" asked Sebastian, one side of his mouth quirking up. "So tonight's the night I should try my luck, then?"

Kurt's response was to rock himself onto his toes, throwing his other arm around Sebastian's neck and sending his mouth crashing into Sebastian's. The initial clack was slightly painful - momentum always seemed about ten times as strong when he was drunk - but he and Sebastian quickly fell into a rhythm, a glorious push-pull of tongues and lips that ran the lightning out of his heart and all the way down his spine. It was hot and sloppy and rough, their tongues dragging on each other a little more than usual, and Kurt held nothing back in the fierceness of his movement. Sebastian's hand drifted down to Kurt's ass and squeezed, and Kurt squeaked into the kiss, but got his revenge a moment later with his teeth, scraping at Sebastian's lip before sliding his mouth across Sebastian's cheek with wet kisses and nipping at Sebastian's jaw.

"So if Charlie doesn't get the privilege, are you going to take me home?" he asked.

Sebastian laughed, moving his hand from Kurt's ass to card fondly through the short hairs on the back of Kurt's head, the ones he knew he wouldn't get busted for touching. "I think it's probably best to get you out of public, hey, tiger?"

Kurt ignored any condescension in that statement, and started to pull Sebastian towards the exit. He vaguely registered Sebastian calling out goodbyes as they moved but ignored him, instead getting to the door and sticking a hand inside the pocket of Sebastian's jeans.

"Hey!" Sebastian exclaimed, trying to wriggle out of Kurt's way on instinct. But it wasn't like it was the first time Kurt had invaded his space like this - whether it be to grab a house key when Sebastian was too intoxicated to find it himself, or to fish out a wallet when Sebastian was too distracted by a phone to realise that the barista was waiting for money - so he didn't push away Kurt's hand. Half a second later Kurt pulled out the entire contents of the pocket and plucked out their checking tickets, slapping the rest (a condom and a few ten dollar bills), onto Sebastian's chest for him to catch. He then pressed another fleeting kiss to Sebastian's lips, their first outside of the boundaries of the dance floor, and turned in their tickets to get their coats.

Stepping outside, as always, had a slight cooling affect on Kurt, but it was definitely not enough to cut through his buzz. The trip to the subway station was a familiar one now, requiring almost no thought, so Kurt grabbed at Sebastian's hand and pulled him through the streets almost mindlessly. Once they got onto the right platform and stopped moving, though, Kurt shivered, having gone with one of his lighter jackets. Sebastian wrapped an arm around Kurt and made a teasing jibe about being a slave to fashion.

"I'm sorry, did you black out the entire time we've known each other?" Kurt asked, and shuffled closer inside the circle of Sebastian's arm. "Fashion is a very worthy master." He paused, letting himself sway for a moment, and then pushed even closer to Sebastian, sliding his arms under Sebastian's coat. "I am cold, though," he added, slightly sheepishly.

"Someone's clingy tonight," Sebastian said with a smirk.

"I'm not clingy," Kurt protested, even if it was kind of true. Who wouldn't want to cling to something that looked that good? "I'm drunk. And I'm cold."

Sebastian could barely suppress his grin as he took what may as well have been an open invitation for innuendo, saying, "If you're so drunk and cold, then I suppose I should find a way to warm you up, hey?"

Kurt hesitated for a mere moment, the thunder of Sebastian's storm rumbling through his veins. Was this too far? Revealing too much? His head was so full of storm clouds and his throat was full of lightning so he wasn't sure, and the shots of Spirytus still felt like they were coiling around it all. But damnit, he _wanted_ this tonight, and Sebastian would be the last person to put too much significance on anything physical.

And really, this would be the most he ever got from Sebastian, an indulgence of his physical attraction to the boy, so why not make the most of it? He wasn't even sure if he could look for more, in all fairness, even if Sebastian ever did offer.

He put one hand on the back of Sebastian's head to force it down, pressing their foreheads together. "Yeah, I think you should," he breathed, and then caught Sebastian up in another kiss.

It took Sebastian a moment to engage, clearly surprised. But then he laughed against Kurt's lips, shrugged his shoulders as if to say, _hey, why not?_ and matched Kurt move for move.

They broke apart for the walk back to Sebastian's apartment, walking briskly through the mostly empty streets, and entered the apartment giggling at ridiculous conversation that neither of them could remember the moment after they happened. But once they were properly inside, coats off, Kurt stepped up close once more.

"I'm still cold," he whined a little childishly, the hint of a demand hidden in his tone, and he pressed his icy fingers to Sebastian's neck.

Sebastian shied away from Kurt's fingers, still laughing, but reeled Kurt back in a moment later. He regarded Kurt's hands for a second, and said, "Well, Kurt, I'm not entirely sure what you expect me to do with cold fingers. There's only one place I can image you could stick them to warm them up, and I'm not sure our friendship is at that poin-"

He was cut off by Kurt's mouth, followed by a smack to the side of the head. "Smartass," Kurt muttered, and kissed Sebastian harder.

It wasn't difficult to slowly coax Sebastian to the couch, giggling as they tripped over the leg of the coffee table and knocked all Sebastian's laundry off the side. Kurt was drowning in everything Sebastian, and simultaneously burning up with it all, and the deeper their kisses got the less it became about a drunken indulgence of his physical attraction to Sebastian. It was about trying to quench and quiet everything within him, a desperate need to answer the roar of the oceans and chase the lightning and, god, there were universes in him, calling out for Sebastian, who made him feel so huge and daring and was constantly pushing him, bringing light to those universes that he'd never known existed...

He was panting and completely lost to it all; he'd pulled Sebastian over him and he didn't know when he'd done it, but it wasn't enough, so he anchored Sebastian's face to his own with one hand, and worked the other between their bodies. Without preamble, he rubbed over the front of Sebastian's pants, grasping, only to be cut off when Sebastian pulled back and grabbed Kurt's hand.

"Whoa, easy there. I don't know how to be anyone's boyfriend," Sebastian said with a smirk.

"I don't care." Kurt replied, and tried to tug Sebastian back down again.

"Hey, no, stop," Sebastian said, not moving back this time, but bracing himself with his hands either side of Kurt's head, eyes searching his face. "Kurt-"

"I want..." Kurt whined, but buried his face in Sebastian's shoulder before he finished, unwilling or unable to complete his sentence. He rubbed his closed eyes into the fabric of Sebastian's shirt a little harshly.

"We all get horny, babe," Sebastian said, gently pushing Kurt's head down so he was flat against the couch, and then touched their foreheads together, eyes still searching. Kurt lay still, feeling blown wide open, sure his eyes were reflecting that. "I'm only going to say this once, because it'll totally fuck with my image if word gets out," he muttered, a half-hearted smirk touched his lips. "Your line? Might not be such a bad one. Don't be so quick to throw it away. Especially not when you're drunk."

Kurt wanted to reply, wanted to tell Sebastian that he'd phrased it wrong originally; it's not that he'd only sleep with boyfriends, it's that he only ever wants to sleep with people who make him feel like _this_. But he was struck dumb with Sebastian so close, looking so gentle, and still as destructively beautiful as he'd been all night - so the words were ignited by the lightning before they could make it out of his throat, and burned there instead.

Sebastian brushed his lips over Kurt's and his eyes finally stopped searching. "I don't want to regret waking up with you," he said, and let the words disappear into the tiny space between them. Then he stood up and pulled Kurt to his feet as well. "But as an apology for cock blocking, I will let you share the bed this time." Sebastian was smirking again, and his voice sounded almost like a shout after the delicate hush of what had just transpired.

Kurt smiled at Sebastian tiredly as he slowly swam out of his daze. He felt so very quiet, like Sebastian had reached out with one gentle finger and put everything in him to sleep. All except for one voice, in a back corner of his mind, telling him there was something in the things Sebastian was saying, some hidden thing that could be important to Kurt. And, with all the skill he'd developed in piecing the things Sebastian said together to find what was important, Kurt should be looking.

But they were in Sebastian's bedroom now, and Sebastian was handing Kurt a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, so Kurt brushed the voice away for awhile. By the time he was in bed, lying on his side, half asleep with one arm stretched out to lay a hand on Sebastian's ribs, Kurt's mind was silent.

* * *

 

Kurt woke with a yelp when he rolled over in bed and crashed into the warm, solid body next to him, colliding in a tangle of limbs and faces mashed into shoulders. Sebastian jerked awake a second later, and smacked Kurt in the forehead with one hand in an attempt to protect himself with half-asleep reflexes.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Kurt said, flustered, diving back to his other side of the bed. He groaned when the movement made his head swim in a very unpleasant manner. "God, we did not drink enough water last night."

Sebastian flung a forearm over his eyes with a groan. "You've got that right. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two was letting you sleep in my bed, if that wake up was any indication."

"Why am I in your bed?" Kurt asked with vague curiosity, not really minding if he got the answer or not. As weird as it was, he enjoyed mornings like this with Sebastian - the quiet openness of being too wrung out from the night before. It was their snark without any of the bite, and there was always a certain trust in their hung over interactions. "Did you try to move my line, Smythe?"

Sebastian snorted. "Hah. No. _You_ did, and it took quite valiant efforts on my part to stop you."

"Oh." Kurt could feel his cheeks heating. "Give me ten minutes to remember everything before I speak to you again."

After particularly good nights, Kurt and Sebastian had very different ways of recalling the events that had passed. Sebastian was all or nothing - all the memories of the night before would be right there when he woke up, sharp and easy to recall, ready to taunt Kurt mercilessly with. But what Sebastian forgot, he forgot completely, an impenetrable shroud cast over the memories of what had happened at his very drunkest. Kurt, on the other hand, very rarely forgot something, but it took awhile for the fog to lift. It was typically Sebastian's needling that started the slow recall, building up the skeleton of the night, and then slowly during the day everything would drift back to him until he had a complete picture. The text message thread between Kurt and Sebastian was sporadically dotted with messages about Kurt's later-in-the-afternoon recollections, typically in the vein of, "YOU DID WHAT, SEBASTIAN SMYTHE?"

But given Sebastian's naked amusement at Kurt's actions the night before, poorly hidden by the arm across his face, Kurt figured he should probably try a little harder than usual to bring his memories back to him.

Five minutes later, after straining his stuffy head as hard as possible, Kurt kind of wished he hadn't bothered. "Oh god," he groaned. "Why?"

Sebastian laughed, reaching out a hand in a half-flailing attempt to locate Kurt's shoulder, which he then patted sarcastically. "If it makes you feel any better..." he paused, and then laughed again. "Actually, nope, I can't think of anything to make you feel better. It was fun, though."

Kurt remembered laughing and giggling and teasingly whining about the cold, rising up to Sebastian's innuendo and pulling the boy into kiss after kiss. "Yeah, I guess so," he said with a half-smile, only for his breath to catch when his memories tugged him further into a particular scene, like clicking on a video buried in a whole folder of them on a computer. He remembered Sebastian's eyes, and inch from his own and ever so serious, whispering the most powerful things to him; things that, in Kurt's raw and exposed state, had sunk right into him and fixed themselves tightly there, adding extra chaos to the storm. Kurt's mind played Sebastian over and over again, saying, _I don't want to regret waking up with you._

Kurt rolled towards the middle of the bed, planting his face between his and Sebastian's pillows, giving himself a moment to process that. "Sebastian?" he asked tentatively, his voice muffled by the bedding.

"Mmmm?" Sebastian hummed quietly.

"Thanks. For being so..." Kurt struggled to find the word.

Sebastian rolled into his side and shuffled a little closer, holding a hand over Kurt's shoulder blade for a moment; Kurt could feel the heat of Sebastian's hovering palm radiating through the t-shirt. Eventually Sebastian lowered his hand, and ran it up across Kurt's shoulder, up the back of Kurt's neck and into his hair. Sebastian's fingers curled there for the briefest of moments, and then were gone. "You're welcome," he said finally, and let his arm drop to completely fill the space between Kurt's prone body and Sebastian's own.

Kurt lay there for a moment longer, trying to find the effort to raise his face. Instead he turned it, ever so slightly, to observe Sebastian's face close to his own, eyes closed. Even with Kurt's disbelief, he could accept the chain of events that had led to them being friends. But he was still left wondering exactly when they had each become so trusting. Maybe it was just as he'd teased Sebastian all those weeks ago - maybe they each held too many of the other's secrets to expend the effort of keeping up walls any more. It was easier just to keep each other close, keep pulling out each other's thoughts to secure more of your own.

Regardless, it was the trust, not the standoff between them, which drove his next question, helpfully supplied by a voice in the corner of his head. "What did you mean last night, when you said you didn't want to regret waking up with me?"

The whole room paused. Not just Sebastian and Kurt, but it felt like everything did. The dust motes that swirled through the air, illuminated by the too-close-to-midday sun, paused mid-flight; the sounds of traffic and life floating up to Sebastian's window faded away, the city holding its breath.

Sebastian cracked one eye open slightly, meeting Kurt's over the few inches of pillow between them. "You should know better than to ask me questions like that," he said casually.

"Sorry," Kurt said, smiling gently. "Nonetheless, I asked."

"I don't know," Sebastian said.

Kurt continued to smile, feeling far too calm for what was probably quite an important discussion. He was finding it too difficult to lift himself out of the trust, however, Sebastian's presence and equal calm as soothing this morning as it had been last night. "You have to know, Sebastian, or you wouldn't have said it."

"I don't know how to word it, though."

"Try. Please."

Sebastian's shoulders tensed and the arm he was lying on twitched, like he was thinking about rolling away onto his back. He didn't, though. Among the world of changes to this New York Sebastian, grown so much from Ohio Sebastian in ways Kurt was still discovering, was that Sebastian was willing to own the things he said and did. It was one of the many beautiful silver linings that had come out of David Karofsky's darkness, though Kurt would probably never articulate that to anyone.

Sebastian huffed a slight sigh. "Well, we have fun, right? As surprising as it's been, you're actually kind of entertaining in a non-train-wreck-way." Kurt smacked the side of Sebastian's head gently. "I just... fuck. Do we really have to talk about this?" Sebastian pulled a face. "Talking about things is so clichéd and... and... hetero."

"After everything else we've talked about, this shouldn't be that difficult for you. You've managed to open your mouth and share the things in your head pretty well thus far."

Sebastian quirked up one side of his mouth in a half-smile at Kurt's sarcastic tone. "Drunk rambles hardly count."

"Not all of them have been drunk rambles," Kurt reminded him. "In fact, fewer of them have been than either of us would want to admit. You're not the only one with a reputation to uphold, you know."

"I'm not sure 'bitchy ice queen' is a reputation worth holding onto."

"Better than some of the things I've heard you called," returned Kurt, poking a finger against Sebastian's sternum.

All the soft smile fell out of Sebastian's face at that. "That's half the problem," he said. "I..." The honesty was apparently too much for Sebastian, and he rolled over with a groan, not away from Kurt but towards him, so they were both squished together in the very middle of the bed, lying on their stomachs. Sebastian then tilted his face towards Kurt, mirroring him, so that only one eye met each other's over the folds of sheet between them. "I've woken up with so many people and eventually been made to regret it for one reason or another later on. You've kind of been the reason that's stopped happening. I don't want you to be the reason it starts again."

Kurt's heart thudded in his chest, and his brain almost flew to teasing Sebastian in an automatic defence, some condescending comment along the lines of, 'Now, that wasn't that hard, was it?' But he bit his tongue as the last minute, knowing if he was anything but just as open with Sebastian in return, the atmosphere would be completely lost. And that voice in the back corner of his mind still had questions, was screaming them louder than ever.

"What do you mean, I was the reason that it stopped?" he asked.

Sebastian laughed into the sheets. "Torture would be less painful than this," he muttered wryly. "Why are you making me say all these things that you have to already know?"

"Because I don't already know them," replied Kurt, tartly.

"After that last time at Sphere, where you asked me why I didn't hook up around you very much, I kind of stopped. Hooking up, that is. Like, altogether."

That was what finally shocked Kurt out of the kind of lazy trance he'd been in, and he turned his head sharply to face Sebastian fully. "What?" he asked.

"Surely you'd figured that out," Sebastian said, his tone turning defensive.

"I just assumed you were hooking up on the nights I didn't go out," Kurt replied.

"Kurt, I don't go out when you don't. You have to have noticed that. Every night that I'm not here, studying - because, Christ, I know I've ranted before, but have you _seen_ the minimum GPA needed for med schools around here? - I'm usually with you."

Kurt was speechless, everything coming together now almost quicker than he could keep up with. For all the skills he'd developed in figuring Sebastian out, putting together the clues to find out what Sebastian was really saying, he'd missed that fact. But it was more obviously true the more he thought about it, and his brain was still ticking, still putting things together. He sat up abruptly, paying no mind to his head, and dug a hand under Sebastian to forcibly roll him over onto his back. Sebastian fought Kurt momentarily, but caved when it became clear Kurt was going to win, and lay there with his face slightly scrunched, as if braced for impact.

The storm was roaring stronger than ever now, as if every fact that Kurt processed from the last few weeks injected new bolts of lightning into the mix. Kurt's heart started to pound full speed, adrenaline flooding through his veins, heating him from the inside out in the space of one blink to another.

"When you stopped me last night, you said you didn't know how to be anyone's boyfriend." Kurt said slowly.

"That's true," Sebastian acknowledged, his voice impassive but his face scrunching even tighter. In any other frame of mind, Kurt would have been hard pressed not to point out how adorable it was.

"You didn't say you won't be anyone's boyfriend, or don't want to be."

"Excellent powers of deduction there, Hummel."

"Don't 'Hummel' me, Smythe," Kurt snapped back. The lightning was building static electricity on his skin now, the storm no longer content to just stay in his body, trying to explode out and wrap the rest of the room into its chaos. His hands were starting to shake and Kurt just _knew_ that if he touched Sebastian's skin right now they would both spark. "If I asked you if you _wanted_ to be someone's boyfriend, what would you say?"

"Well, gosh, I don't know. Why don't you actually _ask_ me and find out?" Sebastian retorted.

"Do you want to be someone's boyfriend, Sebastian?"

Sebastian sat up quickly. In a moment of inward near-hysterics, Kurt realised how ridiculous it was to be having this conversation in bed, both still covered in Sebastian's sheets, over-close and still too raw for not having ventured into the day. But Sebastian was still moving, facing Kurt square-on, shoulders broad and tense. He looked like an animal, braced for attack, but ready to launch to an attack of his own if necessary. "It doesn't matter, Kurt, because like I told you, I _don't know how_."

Kurt knew that this was his cue to soften on Sebastian, to offer reassurances or comfort or make his own declaration. He couldn't.

"But you like me," Kurt said bluntly. Sebastian made scoffing noises, but Kurt couldn't be distracted at this moment. "You like me enough, and in the right way, to actually want to be my boyfriend."

Sebastian rolled his eyes but didn't relax at all, still braced. " _No_ ," he exclaimed, all drama and sarcasm. "What gave it away? Do you think I talk this much to anyone? Or bother spending this much time in their company? Or let them get clingy as fuck when they're drunk?"

Kurt bit his lip. "Or get possessive when they try to dance with strangers in night clubs?"

Sebastian's face became even more set. "Especially that. I don't see why I should have to share."

"Why are you mad at me?"

"Because I thought you were smart enough that you'd figured it out by now, Kurt," Sebastian said, running a hand down the side of his face. "I realised what you were feeling awhile ago, and I thought we'd silently agreed not to talk about it. I don't see why we should have to."

Kurt bit his lip even harder. "So we could do something about it?"

"We can't. I don't know how to be a boyfriend. And at the end of the year, I'm going on exchange to Ireland. And you'll go back to Blaine."

Kurt pushed Sebastian roughly in the shoulder, impassive as Sebastian almost fell off the bed and growled out, "What the hell, Kurt?"

"You _asshole_ ," Kurt screeched. "You complete _ass_. You are so full of shit I can't even believe you. Don't you dare give me crap about not knowing how to be a boyfriend, like it's calculus instead of just you wimping out."

"Kurt," Sebastian started, but Kurt cut him off.

"And don't you _dare_ tell me you know how I'm feeling, and then try to tell me I'd go back to Blaine at the end of the year. You clearly don't know how I feel about you and haven't been listening to a word I've said about letting go of Blaine, or you're just stupid! As if I could possibly forget everything at the end of the year just because you run off to Ireland."

"Kurt," Sebastian started, trying again, but Kurt glared at him.

"How can you act like this isn't worth trying? Like-"

In a split second Sebastian lay down against his pillow and then yanked Kurt on top of him, Kurt's head smacking into Sebastian's collarbone. Kurt looked up, ready to continue laying into Sebastian - he'd scream it if necessary - to find Sebastian grinning like the ass he was.

"Have I told you that you're really cute when you're mad?"

Kurt's rage welled up in a split second crescendo, and for that second he was sure he _was_ going to scream; but then it reached maximum point and exploded, bursting like a balloon, and all he could do is smack ineffectively at Sebastian's chest and groan.

"If I'm so stupid, why don't you explain it to me, slowly and clearly. How exactly _do_ you feel about me?" Sebastian's grin was the widest Kurt had ever seen it, and his eyes were glinting, saying more clearly than even his voice could, _payback's a bitch._

Kurt dropped his head onto Sebastian's chest and breathed in for a moment. "I deserve this, don't I?" he asked sheepishly.

"Given everything you've put me through already this morning, with a hangover? Yes, you do." Sebastian gently petted through Kurt's hair.

"And you're going to make me say it?"

"Seems fair," Sebastian said, tone irrepressibly smug.

Kurt groaned, retroactively sympathising with how very painful a position he'd put Sebastian in just minutes ago. Forcing the right words out felt like pulling teeth. "You know I've been changing the whole time I've been in New York."

"So you've told me, yes."

"Be quiet. This is difficult."

"I don't see why I should. Like, at all," Sebastian replied. Kurt could practically feel Sebastian's grin spreading so much that it pulled at the muscles in his chest.

"Sebastian!" Kurt dug his fingers into Sebastian's side in retaliation, tickling mercilessly, and smiled slightly at the giggle Sebastian couldn't quite choke down. It was the laughter that ultimately set him at ease. "I've been changing, you know I have, especially since I broke up with Blaine," Kurt said. "And you somehow embedded yourself into the fabric of what I'm becoming. You put a storm in my head that I can't get rid of, and I can't bring myself to try. Which is why I want to be your boyfriend, and I never guessed that you'd feel the same, and now that I know different I'm so angry you weren't going to do anything about it."

"And so what was last night?"

"Well," Kurt said, and lifted his head so his chin rested on Sebastian's sternum, letting his smile turn impish, "I figured if I couldn't have you I could at least try for your body."

"Oh, you want my body, hey?" Sebastian asked. "I don't know. You have to _earn_ me, and your behaviour this morning..."

"Shut _up_ , Sebastian," Kurt replied, and pulled himself forward by the bed head to line his face up with Sebastian's.

Their kiss was the most gentle they had ever shared by far, a tender connection that said the rest of what they hadn't been able to verbalise. As their lips met, everything relaxed - the dust motes began their swirl in the sunlight once more and New York released her held breath, the city sounds drifting back up to his window. The setting and the sounds made it all the more beautiful to Kurt, here with a boy he never expected to care for, kissing so gently, in the city of his dreams.

They didn't even part to breathe, their lips just coming to rest against each other, eyelashes fluttering against cheeks and tangling as they inhaled. Their mouths met softly, never too deeply, and it was enough for the longest time; but eventually, Kurt tried to intensify it -

Only for Sebastian to tilt his head sideways with a groan, stroking a hand down Kurt's back.

"Babe, you should probably get your phone. I don't think I can stand it ringing anymore."

Kurt sighed, placing a wet kiss under Sebastian's ear before pushing himself off the boy and clambering off his bed to dig through his jeans.

Kurt's phone had a series of messages and a missed call, all from Rachel, and he had no idea how he'd missed them all arriving. He ignored the voicemail Rachel had left and went straight to the messages.

_The coast is clear, you can come home. :)_

_Kurt, you're usually back from Sebastian's by now._

_Kurt, call me!_

_Oh my goodness, Kurt, are you NOT at Sebastian's?_

_Or is there something you're not telling me?_

_KURT!_

_Kurt Elizabeth Hummel, I swear to Streisand, if you don't answer your phone in the next ten minutes I'm going to go to Sebastian's apartment and refuse to leave until you personally come to take me home._

Kurt rolled his eyes, clambering back up next to Sebastian on the bed with phone in hand. Only once settled did he reply. _Rachel, you don't even know where Sebastian lives._

 _That doesn't matter,_ Rachel replied. _I would have had Brody find out where Sebastian lives from one of the no doubt dozens of men from NYADA that Sebastian has slept with._

 _It's cute how you think Brody will bend to your will like Finn did,_ Kurt sent back, unable to control all of his bitchiness in the face of the dig about Sebastian, even if he knew it was a little unfair. Less than six months ago Kurt would have made the same comment.

_Kurt!_

_Regardless, I need you to come home. I'm having a minor fashion crisis and I need your input._

"Oh dear god," Kurt muttered. "If she's admitting that she's having a problem then 'minor' is definitely an understatement." _I'll be home soon. Don't make any hasty decisions_ , he sent.

"As _fascinating_ as this glimpse into the Hummel-Berry dynamic as been, I can't help but notice that you just implied you'll be leaving me," Sebastian broke in, and when Kurt turned to face him, Sebastian pulled a ridiculous, exaggerated pout. Kurt snorted indelicately, and Sebastian went back to what had to be becoming a permanent grin.

"Well, you saw what Rachel said." Kurt reluctantly pulled himself away from the comfort of Sebastian's arms and bed, and picked up his pile of clothes from the dresser. The sheer number of times he'd worn the same outfit home the next day was in danger of becoming a crime. "I have to save this fashion disaster before it's too late."

"What a hero," replied Sebastian mockingly, placing a fluttering hand over his heart. "But you're leaving unfinished business here."

"Well, let's see," Kurt said, and set his clothes down on the bed, before straddling Sebastian's lap. "It all seems pretty simple to me. Sebastian, you're an idiot, and as such, I plan to ignore all the stupid things you've said today. Would you join me in doing so and be my boyfriend?"

Sebastian's eyes were a little wide, like he hadn't actually expected Kurt to try to cement anything, just tease some more. "Kurt..." he said. "I know you think the things I said were stupid, and okay, maybe the Blaine stuff was - though with how hot you are when you're angry, that's up for debate. _Ow!_ Hey! No pinching! But, it's still the truth. I honestly have no idea how to be anyone's boyfriend."

"And I don't care," Kurt said calmly. "Do you think anyone really does? Even with practice, every relationship is as different as the people involved in it. Being stuck on the same problem everyone else has is no excuse to wimp out. Next issue."

"I'm going on exchange to TCD in the fall. You already knew that."

Kurt sighed a little, slotting his arms on either side of Sebastian's head to press against the headboard. This, he would acknowledge, was a bigger problem, and was indeed something Sebastian had brought up weeks ago, when his exchange application to study a year at Trinity College Dublin first been approved. "You're flying off in what, September?" Kurt asked.

"The third," Sebastian added.

"And it's March now. That gives us six months."

"I'm not up for a long-distance relationship," Sebastian said plainly.

Kurt kissed the tip of Sebastian's nose. "I'm touched that you have that much faith we'll last that long. Regardless, at least right now, I'm not willing to have a long distance relationship either. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't make the most of the six months we do have."

Kurt began to nuzzle at Sebastian's neck as the other boy stayed silent, staring at the wall in front of him. Eventually he sighed and tipped his head back and to the side, baring himself to Kurt's wandering nose and mouth. "You really think we can do this?" he asked Kurt, resignedly.

"I really do."

Sebastian pressed Kurt's face between his two hands and looked Kurt in the eye. "You're not allowed to ever let me regret this," he said mock-solemnly.

"Oh, 'Bastian, you're going to regret it nearly every day," Kurt said with the same mock solemnity. And then he smiled. "But I'll make it worth your while." And then he lowered his face and kissed Sebastian soundly.


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder to double check the warnings, as listed at the start of Part One, if you haven't already. Thanks for reading!

Rachel's fashion problem was actually very close to being a disaster. She'd somehow decided that it was an acceptable idea to dip into her old, pre-makeover wardrobe for her date with Brody that night, and it took a full fifteen minutes to talk her down from the metaphorical edge of the fashion cliff.

Thankfully, by the time Kurt had gotten home and solved the crisis for her, Rachel had very little time to question Kurt on where he'd been all day. When she started in on Kurt, he was able to brush her off with some hand waving and vague comments about bad hangovers. Rachel narrowed her eyes, looking to probe deeper, but just as she opened her mouth there was a knock at the door. Between all the different ways Brody cut down on Rachel's insanity, Kurt reflected, Brody was quickly becoming Kurt's favourite person.

But then, as Rachel turned to say goodbye to Kurt she whispered at him, "This isn't over, Kurt. I know there are more details and I expect _all_ of them on my return." And that only brought images back to Kurt of the boy he'd left in a hazy, sun-filled room, and, well, maybe Brody could be second favourite.

Soon after Rachel left, Kurt signed onto Skype, hoping that maybe his dad would be around. Burt was slowly becoming better at managing his office in DC and the shop, especially with Finn looking to settle in Lima for the foreseeable future; this had left him with more time to relax around the house, the way he should to preserve his health, and thus more time with Skype signed in just in case Kurt was around. However, when Kurt signed in his dad's little icon was grey, and Kurt felt a slight stab of guilt. He talked to his dad on the phone fairly often, and more often than most other people his age for sure, but he knew Burt enjoyed getting to _see_ Kurt. His dad struggled a little sometimes without the cues that came from Kurt's facial expressions and body language, whether he acknowledged it or not. And Kurt had been spending so much more of his free time with Sebastian that he'd not been around on Skype nearly often enough.

Someone else was signed into Skype, though. Blaine's icon was green, and this drove the little stab of guilt Kurt felt over even deeper. Blaine was another person Kurt had not spoken to enough of late. Learning to let go was still a work in progress for both of them, and instead of talking, they both tended to avoid it all by throwing themselves into their own lives and not making time for each other. And then as the letting go became easier, and being involved in their separate lives became less of a distraction and more of a focus in its own right, the habit of making time for each other just wasn't there. But really, no matter the direction their lives were taking, that wasn't okay. Like he told Blaine, letting go or not, Kurt still loved him.

Kurt opened a chat and tentatively typed in, _Blaine?_

It took about a minute - long enough for Kurt to idly open a trashy fashion blog - before the request for a video call came through. When Kurt accepted it, there was Blaine, dressed fairly casually but hair still trapped in a full helmet of gel.

"Hi Kurt!" Blaine said, bouncing a little in his chair.

Kurt smiled broadly in return, glad to see Blaine was having a good day. "Good afternoon to you, kind sir," he said. "How might you be this fine spring day?"

Blaine laughed, looking out the window Kurt knew was to the left of Blaine's desk. "I don't know about 'fine spring day'; it might be spring, but it looks pretty wet and miserable outside to me." He looked back at Kurt and said, all shameless and smiling, "But it's much better now that I've seen your pretty face."

If Kurt was perfectly honest, one of his favourite things about finding stability in their separate lives had been the return of flirty Blaine, who was back like Kurt hadn't seen since they were both at Dalton and Blaine had been utterly oblivious. It spoke of Blaine being comfortable in his own place in a way Kurt was worried he wouldn't see until Blaine finally got to college, wherever it may be.

"Someone's in a good mood today," Kurt said by way of avoiding reply, and Blaine's smile split a little wider.

"Yeah, I am - well, I mean, I was in an okay mood today already, but now you're here and I can tell you it's an even better one." He paused for dramatic effect, and then said in a rush, "I got my audition invitation letters this week. From a bunch of colleges."

"Oh my god, Blaine, that's amazing!" Kurt said, jumping up a little in his seat himself and clapping his hands. "Which colleges?"

"So far I've gotten letters from Elon, CCM and NYADA. Both schools at NYU have requested that I just send an audition video, so I'm waiting on Carnegie Melon and OSU now."

Kurt babbled something about that being so great, and Blaine grinned at him for another moment before his face sobered a little. "Wait, I'm sorry, I should have asked - have you heard from NYADA as well?"

Kurt nodded and reached to the side of his desk, where his own NYADA audition invitation sat on the table. "It arrived in the mail this week. Looks like fate's decided to give me a second chance after all."

Blaine launched off into an excited babble about their audition songs, and how much preparation Kurt thought might be too much, and had Kurt asked any of the people from NYADA about their own audition experiences yet? Kurt tried to be enthused about it all, but let part of his mind drift elsewhere.

Truth be told, Kurt had very nearly not reapplied for NYADA this year. It had taken more than one long conversation with a surprisingly supportive Sebastian before he'd decided to bother filling out the form and sending it off. Kurt knew that it was silly to give up on his dreams so easily, but when everything was taken into account, it had almost not seemed worth the strain of applying all over again. For starters, Kurt _had_ indeed been talking to some of the NYADA boys about auditions - friendly, mindless chatter to pass the time in Callbacks before Heat got a good crowd and sneaking cheap drinks if one of the bartenders was willing to not check IDs too closely. Everyone he spoke to had had similar, terrifying audition experiences to Kurt's own, and had been left with equally little feedback at the end of it about what was and wasn't good. Not many people had much to say on the idea of Kurt reapplying except one, who winced when Kurt had mentioned the idea in passing.

"I'd think twice about it, man," he'd said, regarding Kurt with a hint of sympathy. "I mean, it sounds like Tibideaux likes you from what you've told me, so maybe if there wasn't really anything _wrong_ , and there just wasn't space for you, it's worth trying again? But if there was something she actually didn't like with you - and trust me, there's something she doesn't like about almost everyone, even perfect pets like Brody - she's not keen on giving second chances on anything other than her terms. I've seen too many people fuck up and grovel for a chance to fix it, only to be humiliated, to encourage you."

And on top of that daunting advice, came the consideration of Kurt's job at Vogue.com. When Kurt had asked Isabelle to write him an extra reference for the application, discussing the success of the makeover video and Kurt's general work ethic, Isabelle had taken the time to sit him down and give him a warning. She'd tried to phrase it as nicely as possible, but ultimately she'd explained that if Kurt was going to study full time, then there wouldn't be a place for him at Vogue. Studying part time, Kurt could probably keep up the work hours to hold his job, but the hours NYADA would demand of him, and at inflexible times? Despite Kurt's initial affront, he knew that Isabelle had been as nice as possible about it, and appreciated being given such a clear choice. Kurt enjoyed throwing himself into the fashion world - loved it, at times - and it was hard to pass up such an incredible entry, one that might never come his way so easily again. Not to mention, he loved being self-reliant now that his job was a paying one, and going back to living off supplements from his dad, ones Kurt always felt a little guilty receiving, was not something he was keen to revisit.

It had eventually been Sebastian, of all people, who'd talked Kurt into applying, despite it adding to his "long list of gay clichés" that Sebastian took frequent opportunities to mock Kurt for. After spending awhile talking the issue around in circles, to varying degrees of Sebastian's patience, the other boy had eventually said, "Look, Kurt. It's not a death sentence to your fashion career if you choose to attend NYADA. Say you apply, and you get in. Taking one year to try NYADA out and keep your options open is going to hurt you a lot less in the long run than cutting yourself off from something before you're entirely sure you're ready to let it go."

Sebastian had stopped, but Kurt had merely waved his hand, gesturing for Sebastian to continue, knowing the boy had more to say. Sebastian had sighed before continuing, saying, "Look, don't take this the wrong way. But you never, ever take the path of least resistance. You always have to make life as difficult for yourself as possible. And if you give up on the Broadway thing so quickly? One day, whether your fashion career is successful or not, you're going to hate yourself for it. On the other hand, if you try NYADA, even just for one year? It'll be harder to forge your career without another job like Vogue falling into your lap, yeah. But it's doable, and knowing you, you'll probably enjoy the challenge, even if you bitch out every single person around you the entire time."

Kurt had slapped Sebastian for the tease at the time, but had taken the advice to heart. Sebastian rarely gave speeches like that, so Kurt had the feeling Sebastian felt relatively strongly on the matter - though Kurt hadn't known why at the time. In retrospect, the thought of why Sebastian _might_ care so much made Kurt smile.

"So where's your audition?" Blaine asked, drawing Kurt back into the conversation properly.

"In the NYADA concert hall," replied Kurt, trying to muster up some enthusiasm, at least for Blaine's sake.

"Oh wow," Blaine replied. "That will be spectacular. Getting a preview on what the next four years of your life are going to look like, hey?"

Kurt smiled vaguely, not having the heart to correct Blaine right now. "What about you?"

Blaine laughed lightly. "I think the number of, ah, _characters_ at McKinley scared Carmen Tibideaux off last year. This year they've decided that all the Ohio applicants have to travel to Cincinnati for their audition, so it's going to be at a high school there."

Kurt, wanting to end this particular topic of conversation, said fondly, "Blaine, you have to be the only person our age who calls bat shit crazy people 'characters'. You grandpa."

"I'm just old fashioned, and you love it," replied Blaine. And, well, Kurt certainly couldn't argue there.

"Speaking of people who are old fashioned," Kurt said slowly, drawing it out, "how's Thomas?"

Blaine blushed slightly and said, "He's fine. Still sweet, but I, ah, don't think the spark is there. We're still hanging out, but it's mostly platonic."

Thomas was a junior Warbler from Dalton that Blaine had met a few months ago, and tentatively told Kurt about in February. Blaine had been very hesitant to tell Kurt anything at first, especially with their deal to talk over the summer about getting back together; but Kurt had been slowly becoming lost in Sebastian by that point, and had found that he honestly hadn't minded hearing about someone he knew was only ever going to be temporary.

"Aw, that's a shame."

"He had plenty to live up to, I guess," Blaine replied, looking at Kurt up through his eyelashes.

"Be kind to the boy is all that I ask," Kurt said. "Charmed-by-Anderson Syndrome is one that's difficult to cure in teenage boys, or so I've heard."

Blaine laughed along with Kurt, and then fixed him with a more serious stare. "You're in a very good mood today, too," he said. "What's got you so happy?"

Kurt froze, not having the slightest idea of what to say. For all that he had encouraged Blaine to open up to him about the boys he was meeting, Blaine had not done the same, and Blaine's request to spare him the details back in January was still at the forefront of his mind.

"There's someone special, isn't there?" Blaine eventually asked, when Kurt never replied. "There's another boy that put that smile on your face."

Kurt nodded, and then said, "There is someone. But I haven't told anyone else yet. It only happened today."

Blaine regarded Kurt, eyes slowly brightening with an odd mix of wistfulness and resignation. "But it's been coming for awhile, hasn't it? I know we haven't been talking as much as we should, but I could kind of see it coming. Someone's been making you... stronger, I guess. More sure of yourself. For at least the last couple of months."

Kurt started. He hadn't realised, as he'd been observing that development in Blaine, Blaine had been seeing it in him. "I didn't think it was ever going to happen," Kurt replied. "I thought he was just going to be a friend. But, it turns out that I was wrong."

Blaine's mouth twisted a little bitterly. "I guess that's my fault. I was the one that taught you to never, ever read into anything, after all."

"Oh, honey, no." Kurt rushed to reassure Blaine, but the shorter boy just held up a hand.

"It's alright, Kurt. Do you want to tell me about him?"

Kurt seriously thought about it. Now was the time he should probably do it - no matter how things were going to look in the future, Blaine probably deserved to know that it was Sebastian. But for some reason, with all the history and mess between the three of them, he just couldn't force the words out. "I don't think that's a good idea."

Blaine asked, "Is it because I won't like what I hear, or because you don't think I can handle hearing anything at all?" The question, which could have so easily sounded like an accusation, somehow didn't. They always did their best never to judge each other, and mostly succeeded.

"A bit of both," Kurt eventually replied.

"Okay," Blaine said, accepting Kurt's word without probing, and wasn't _that_ twisting the guilt in further. "Just - and please, give me an honest answer, even if you think I won't like it or it'll be hard or anything - please tell me: is it serious?"

"It could be," Kurt replied. "But he's leaving New York at the end of the year, at least for awhile, so it's too early to say."

Again, Blaine accepted the words with grace. "I hope he keeps making you happy," Blaine said, and then turned the conversation to idle chatter if they'd never been discussing anything heavier at all.

* * *

 

Kurt and Sebastian fell into the rhythm of their relationship as easily and unexpectedly as they'd fallen into their friendship. It changed so much, but the changes came so easily, to Kurt at least, that he never once lifted his head from the thrilling, crazy rush that was being Sebastian Smythe's boyfriend.

People accepted their relationship with varying degrees of ease, though to Kurt's disgruntlement (and even more Sebastian's, Kurt suspected) no one was entirely happy for them except Brody - and even then, Kurt was fairly sure it was only because he now spent more time at Sebastian's than he did in the apartment. Rachel and Burt had been nearly intractable in their uneasiness, even knowing how close Sebastian and Kurt had been coming in the time before they'd officially become a couple. Their unease was compounded when Kurt had quietly asked them not to tell Blaine who was dating, and even further compounded just about every time Kurt and Sebastian fought - which was fairly often, Kurt freely admitted, especially as Sebastian slogged through his mid-semester exams. What Rachel and Burt didn't see, though, was that almost every fight now ended with them grinning madly at each other, followed by activities of a less than G-rated nature, and Kurt loved every minute of it.

That was another thing almost no one understood - exactly why Kurt loved their relationship, as wild and violently passionate as it was. They all seemed to assume, whether they'd known Kurt in Lima or not, that he wanted another person like Blaine, someone comfortable and courteous. No one seemed to see what Kurt could so clearly, that the storm that Sebastian had put in his head now spread out to encompass the boy himself, that their relationship _was_ the storm, and that Kurt felt most alive when tossed and thrown about amongst the thunder and the lightning. Sebastian challenged Kurt in a way no one ever had before, and it was thrilling and absolutely everything Kurt had never known he'd needed, but had become hooked on more quickly than he could blink.

Continuing the line of people who disapproved for one reason or another was Charlie, and all the NYADA boys who came with him. Because, as wild as their relationship was, both he and Sebastian were determined to keep it private. While once upon a time Kurt would have gladly flaunted his relationship, both of them were far too possessive to share much of their limited time together. So the longer that they were together, the less they went out clubbing; especially after the second time they did so as a couple, when Charlie had made his ritual pass at Kurt, complete with trying to steal a kiss, and Sebastian had nearly gutted him. It was the only time Kurt had seen Charlie looking anything other than amused.

A month to the day into their relationship, Kurt was at Sebastian's apartment, crawling through his unfairly huge CD collection. Kurt's audition for NYADA was in a week, and as unsure as he'd originally been about the whole process, now that Kurt had committed to it he was almost unbearably nervous about what was to come. Sebastian was on the other side of the room, studying some sort of chemistry Kurt didn't even want to try to understand, but when Kurt fell sideways onto the sofa with a sigh he closed his textbooks and came to Kurt, crawling up to lie beside him.

"What's wrong?" Sebastian asked, sliding one hand under Kurt's head to cradle it. "Can't find anything appropriately hideous enough to please a musical theatre purist?"

Kurt pulled an indelicate face at Sebastian and then closed his eyes, sighing again, even more dramatically than before. "I have absolutely no idea what to pick. I put everything on the line for my last audition and it didn't pay off, so it's almost impossible to choose a direction this time."

"You know Rachel showed me the video she took of your audition, that time you were taking _forever_ to change out of that monstrosity of buckles," Sebastian teased, sliding backwards a little to dodge the smack that he had learned almost always came after a comment like that. "And I managed to pick my brains up off the floor long enough to see something other than the amazing sight of you in those gold pants." Sebastian mouthed along the side of Kurt's neck for a moment, making him whine; it had only taken Sebastian a week to figure out exactly how to dismantle Kurt entirely with his hands, mouth and cock. After a month, it only took a touch or two for him to work Kurt up. When Kurt started to grind against his boyfriend, though, Sebastian pulled back with a smirk. "I think you proved you can do the showbiz sparkle as well as NYADA could possibly want. So I think this time, you should try to show them that you can kick ass at a different kind of performance."

The confidence Sebastian had in Kurt - that it was a given to him that Kurt was more than a one-trick pony - had never ceased to warm Kurt. But tonight, not even it was enough to soothe his mounting panic. "Like what?" Kurt asked. "That performance I gave Carmen last year - that was me at my best. I honestly have no idea what else I have to give that could top that."

"Come on, babe, you're letting your anxiety blind you," Sebastian said gently, grabbing at one of Kurt's hands and lacing their fingers together. "You can think this through. What's the opposite of all that shiny, polished showbiz shit?"

"Rawness?" Kurt answered tentatively, feeling rather like a kindergarten student being guided through some basic problem.

"Exactly," Sebastian replied.

"Sebastian, you of all people should know how stupid it is to try to tell me to be 'raw', to lose the polish. I wouldn't even know how to start going about it."

"No. See, because I'm such a spectacular boyfriend who knows you so well," Sebastian said, smirking, "I know there's an exception to that. All that polish can disappear in a second."

"Somehow, I don't think that you sticking three fingers in me and making me beg right before I go on stage is going to help," Kurt said dryly, barely even blushing.

"Ooh, feeling patronised makes you crass. I'll have to remember that." Sebastian leaned closer to Kurt, so their foreheads were almost touching. "That's not what I meant, though. When you're singing about someone you really care about? You beam out emotions like a lighthouse. Even when you're singing along to your iPod while cooking or going through that ridiculous skincare regimen, I can still tell when a song has reminded you of someone important, because your whole face... not softens, exactly. Just shifts. You can't help but give away everything going on in that overfilled heart."

Sebastian was starting to look uncomfortable with how unexpectedly sappy his talk had turned, so Kurt took pity on him and drew him into a quick, dirty kiss. That was the trick with Sebastian - let him fall into these moments of emotion or honesty before he'd realised he was there, and then distract him before he could freak out about it.

Kurt broke off the kiss a short while later to ask archly, "So I sing about _someone_ , then? And I don't suppose you have any suggestions as to who."

"Me, of course." Sebastian pasted on a quick, smug grin, taking the out Kurt offered him.

"Of course," Kurt replied. "So, what, _oh my man I love him so, he'll never know_?" Kurt trilled. " _All my life is just despair_ -"

Sebastian, who had pulled himself off of the sofa, grabbed a nearby pillow and threw it at Kurt. "Please. Your life's been fucking ecstasy since I crashed it."

"Hm, still reserving judgement on that one," Kurt replied, watching curiously as Sebastian hunted through the racks of CDs, eventually pulling out one about mid-way down the wall. He returned to Kurt, not bothering to sit back down, and handed over the jewel case.

As soon as Kurt saw the cover he laughed, knowing there could only be one song Sebastian meant. "You want me to sing the song that was playing the first time we slept together."

"Yep," Sebastian said, looking all too pleased with himself. "Just think about it."

Oh, and Kurt was thinking about it - that night, three days after they'd officially gotten together, sitting on that very couch and arguing about the finer points of their music tastes. Sebastian had gotten downright derisive about not only Kurt's love for show tunes in general, but had launched attacks on the types of songs Kurt listened to within the genre; in retaliation, Kurt had pointed out that there was probably a _reason_ half the bands Sebastian listened to remained undiscovered by any major record label.

Like most of their arguments, it had devolved very quickly in the most blissful of ways, and they had moved to the bedroom, chests heaving, hands already fumbling at belts and zippers. The music of Sebastian's iPod, still on shuffle, had followed them, and had provided an unexpected soundtrack to the moment. Kurt had tuned it out for large chunks of time, completely unable to focus on anything but the stretches of skin before him or the spiral of keening lust Sebastian's hands and tongue had put him on. For just a moment as Sebastian had fingered Kurt open, Kurt had gasped, choking on the air and his desperation, and had heard the wild rush of _Drumming Song_ playing around them - but that's not what Sebastian wanted him to sing.

No, it was another one, one that had played later, when Sebastian had first pushed into Kurt. He'd braced himself with one arm against the headboard, looked down at Kurt and kissed him fiercely. Then he'd stroked his fingers down Kurt's neck, and then eased himself in - and Kurt had thrown his head back, feeling Sebastian's intrusion shooting down his legs and up his sides to tingle in his fingers. And Sebastian had been everywhere, and then he'd started to _move._ And on that drag out, he'd opened Kurt up, splitting his mind and heart until they were gaping, and in had rushed this song - _an atom to atom oh can you feel it on me love, a pattern to pattern oh can you see it on me love_ \- and Sebastian had sealed the music in with his kiss.

Long after Kurt stopped feeling sore, after they'd had sex a dozen times more that had wrecked Kurt in so many different ways, the song, _Strangeness and Charm_ , had lingered in his mind.

"Oh my god," Kurt said, looking down at the CD in his hand. "You picked my audition song for me."

"Yep," Sebastian repeated, turning away towards the kitchen.

"You picked my audition song for me, and you picked the song we first fucked to."

"Yes, I did. You'll have to shorten the song, but you'll be amazing."

Kurt got up and followed Sebastian, wrapping his arms around Sebastian's middle from behind to stop him in his tracks. "You are the most ridiculous human being on the planet, and I have no idea why we're together."

"Well, babe, it's like I explained to you on that very first morning here in New York," Sebastian drawled. "There was always _something_ burning pretty hot between us. And once we got our bitching out of the way..."

"Hah. You just admitted to bitching."

"What can I say?" Sebastian said with a shrug, turning around to face Kurt, kissing him lightly. "You bring out the worst in me. Plus," he then added, "it's actually pure chemistry."

"Pray tell," Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You remember collision theory from high school? It's just like they teach you. Two molecules react when they hit each other in the right direction, with enough force to break their current bonds. It's science, babe."

Kurt stared at his boyfriend for a moment before dissolving into helpless laughter, hiding his face in the crook of Sebastian's neck. "Pre-med is turning you into the world's biggest dork," he said. "Keep it up, though. The worse you get the less competition I have."

Sebastian scooped Kurt up with a growl, crossing the room in seconds and depositing Kurt, a little ungracefully, back on the couch. He climbed over Kurt a second later and pressed him down, biting and sucking at Kurt's neck while playing with the buttons on his shirt. He claimed Kurt's lips in a hard kiss, and then muttered into his mouth, "As if there was ever any competition."

And he kissed Kurt again and Kurt fell, fell, fell.

* * *

 

Sebastian and Kurt were lying cuddled together one lazy Saturday afternoon at the beginning of May. Sebastian had pulled an all-nighter trying to get an assignment done before the nine am deadline, and Kurt was slowly coming off the high of his NYADA audition the day before, so they were content to drift in and out of consciousness on the whim of the near-summer air. As long as they were still together.

Truth be told, Sebastian wouldn't have had to have pulled the all-nighter had he not gone with Kurt to keep him calm and watch the audition, not that he'd told Kurt that. It had been entirely worth sitting at the computer until five in the morning, leaving a sleep-warm boyfriend in his bed, to see the performance Kurt had given. Kurt had been stunning, to no one's surprise but his own. Sebastian was more than a little smug that his guess had paid off - from the look on that Carmen woman's face as they had left the concert hall, that kind of rawness had been _exactly_ what she had been looking for from Kurt, and had not expected to find. Sebastian knew without a doubt that Kurt would be offered a place at NYADA next year.

But even seeing Kurt at his shining performance best yesterday didn't change the fact that this was Sebastian's favourite kind of moment, just as they were now. Kurt nuzzled a little closer, rubbing his cheek shamelessly against Sebastian's shirt, and Sebastian's chest tightened (he refused to pinpoint it to his heart, because yeah he might have a boyfriend now but he wasn't a fucking sap). He knew that he wasn't the only one to have ever seen Kurt like this, that there had been someone before him that Kurt had curled up with in nothing but a thin, white undershirt and jeans, but it didn't change the softness of Kurt's skin, or the warmth in his eyes as he cracked them open occasionally just to let them fall on Sebastian's face.

It didn't change the fact that Kurt was the first person to make the silence something good and comforting.

Kurt stirred, sliding his palms over Sebastian's shoulders and back again, smiling softly as he shifted himself higher. Kurt's cheek pressed to Sebastian's neck for a moment, where he paused again as if to listen to the breath in Sebastian's throat; and then Kurt pushed himself up onto an elbow to hover over Sebastian, face to face. Sebastian didn't flinch when Kurt's fingers came up to Sebastian's temple and stroked, fluttering their way gently down to his chin.

Every day, Kurt was teaching Sebastian. If anyone else had dared to try something like that, they would have been slapped away and verbally destroyed before their fingertips had ever made contact with the skin of his temple. But that was the guy who hadn't known how to be a boyfriend, and he was learning now. Maybe not about everything, because shitty things like 'talking about his feelings' never got any easier, but these wordless demonstrations? The giving and taking and displaying? He had this.

Still silent, Kurt bent down over Sebastian's face, and when Sebastian's eyes fluttered closed to better breathe Kurt in, tiny kisses were touched to his eyelids. Sebastian didn't open his eyes and felt Kurt move instead, until a equally tiny kiss was pressed at the hollow of his throat and then at the point of the v in the neck of his t-shirt.

And then Kurt laid his head back on Sebastian's chest, mostly centred but slightly off to the left, and Sebastian choked so harshly and suddenly that he was surprised he didn't jolt the boy off of his chest.

Sebastian closed his eyes and breathed. Breathe, breathe, release, relief. Breathe in the smell of Kurt's hair. Sebastian tried not to panic.

And, after only a few more breaths, found it shockingly easy not to.

Because it might have only _just_ hit him, but being in love with Kurt wasn't something to panic about.

Sebastian looked down at Kurt's face, still smiling a little even though pale eyelids were fluttering shut over blue eyes again, and watched as Kurt surrendered back to the warmth and the doze.

* * *

 

Saturday was, for Kurt, a perfect example of how his relationship with Sebastian, and the boy himself, could go from one extreme to another in less than twenty four hours.

The day had started, at least for Kurt, when Sebastian's previous day ended - at five am, with Sebastian crawling into bed after finally finishing his bioethics assignment, dragging Kurt towards his body with little regard for Kurt's sleep. It was a rough way to wake up, but in the sweetest way possible, knowing that all that Sebastian wanted at the end of an exhausting day was to fit Kurt into his arms, even if they wouldn't stay that way in sleep for long. In fact it wasn't long after that Sebastian had dropped into a very deep sleep and Kurt had crawled away, well and truly awake now, to contemplate New York from the bedroom window as the sun rose.

Sebastian had stirred at a reasonable morning hour, and Kurt had made him breakfast as a silent thank you for everything - convincing him to go to NYADA, helping him pick an audition song, and even putting off the assignment to the last minute to come to Kurt's audition, no matter how much he protested that he would have stayed up late doing the assignment anyway. He'd even let Sebastian crack a few inappropriate jokes about Kurt being a well trained houseboy, figuring that Sebastian had earned a few easy points for his side of the tally.

The afternoon had dragged them back to bed, and for all that Kurt knew he was, at heart, just a silly romantic, it had been one of those afternoons that would be burned into his spirit for a very long time to come. Not because of the significance of anything that was said and done - all they'd really done was cuddle and sleep on and off in the afternoon light for hours - but because of the look on Sebastian's face. If at any point Kurt had thought that maybe there were remnants of the hardened, unsympathetic boy from their senior year left in Sebastian as he was now, it would have all been washed away a hundredfold over the course of those simple hours. Because no one could have a trace of ill will in them who looked so terribly vulnerable to another's touch. And there were so many things that could have tainted the time - worries about the fact that the term would be over in a few short weeks, and that Trinity College lay in wait for Sebastian beyond the summer's sunset - but none of them had been let into the air between the two boys, too full of the things Sebastian could never find the words to say or have the self-value to hear from Kurt.

But here, now, in that deep kind of night that was neither yesterday or tomorrow, was the other extreme of it all. Kurt wasn't sure when he woke, only that he eventually became aware of Sebastian twitching beside him, sleeping but still flinching away from something. Just as Kurt was preparing to shake Sebastian awake, not sure exactly what to do because Kurt had never seen his boyfriend anything but calm in his sleep before, tears started to leak out of Sebastian's clenched-shut eyes. And Kurt could feel Sebastian wake in the sudden stiff-stillness of his now familiar body, but still Sebastian's eyes were tight shut, and still the tears came.

"Sebastian?" Kurt whispered, and stroked a hand down the side of Sebastian's face. Sebastian flinched harshly at the touch on instinct, but then grabbed at Kurt's hand before he could yank it away. He held strong onto Kurt's fingers for a moment, pressing them against his lips, and said hoarsely, "How on earth am I supposed to atone for all of that?"

Kurt was stunned into inaction at first, stuck in a memory of the Sebastian from months ago who'd asked Kurt the same question in just the same pleading tone but with only half the desperation. Kurt had thought Sebastian had let go of the concept since, because he never spoke about it. Apparently not.

"Did you dream?"

"I did," Sebastian replied, his voice becoming jagged as his breath turned to gasps. "All those things that I did, and I want to play god. How can I ever save lives with pictures like this in my head? I'm the one that created them."

Kurt was starting to get scared. He wished Sebastian would open his eyes, just give Kurt an in, because Sebastian shut off like this was impossible to deal with and he'd never seen his boyfriend so upset before. "What pictures are there?" he asked, trying to make his voice soothing, and stroked Sebastian's face, over the lines of tightness on his forehead and around his eyes.

"David Karofsky, swinging from the rafters."

Kurt's blood turned to ice. And then he yanked Sebastian against his body as hard as he could as if maybe somehow the cold in both of them would add together to make something warmer. "Oh baby, you made up for that so long ago."

"A couple of charity baskets and a dedicated glee club performance doesn't atone for something like that." Sebastian still wouldn't open his eyes, keeping them screwed shut so sightly it looked painful. He looked almost as if he were stuck in some horrible trance, still more in his nightmare than the waking world.

Kurt bit his lip, indecisive, and whispered, "One throwaway line didn't make David do what he did. But are you really still looking for atonement?"

"I am, I am, but I don't know how to find it. You're my greatest atonement but it's not enough."

"What do you mean I'm your greatest atonement?" Kurt asked, suddenly stiffening himself.

"You're everything good I can do in this world," Sebastian whispered, breath starting to calm again.

Kurt wished he could say the same about his own breath. "Is that all I am, Sebastian? Just a drawn-out form of making right everything you feel bad about seem alright? Because you're making a kid you picked on in high school happy?" It was the distress in Kurt's own voice that seemed to finally drag Sebastian out of his own, and before he could feel guilty about that, hands were on Kurt's face.

"Oh god, babe, no, no," Sebastian rushed out, eyes now wide open. "Not at all."

"Really?" Kurt asked. "Because every time I've gotten you at your most honest - blind drunk, still half asleep - it's what you talk to me about. Atoning."

"Because sometimes it seems like you're the only thing I can do right. You're the only person I've touched where I think I've done more good than harm. But that doesn't mean I'm trying to use you to make up for everything else," Sebastian replied, digging one hand into his own hair.

"Okay, shhh, I believe you. I trust you. I'm not freaking out. I'm sorry," Kurt said, grabbing Sebastian's hands and bringing them up to be kissed. "But Sebastian, you being so fixated on this idea of atonement worries me."

"It's not like I can shake it. Trust me, I've tried. Nothing works. You can't run from it. I'm still trying," Sebastian said weakly. He sounded like he was trying to throw his walls back up but they were crumbling back down again with every word Kurt heard.

"Nobody could possibly atone for everything they feel bad about," Kurt told him. "I don't think you need to atone for anything. But if you feel like you need _something_ , then I don't think atonement's it. I think what you're looking for is absolution." Kurt went back to stroking his fingers across Sebastian's forehead, using the backs of them this time.

Sebastian soaked up the touch, and then he eventually asked, "Is there a difference?"

"Of course," Kurt said, locking eyes with his boyfriend through the darkness. "You're still trying to _pay_ for the things you've done somehow, when all you really need is forgiveness. And that's free."

"I still don't know how to find that either, though." Sebastian turned his face a little more into Kurt's hand.

"I think, if you asked them, most people you're looking for forgiveness from have already given it," Kurt said, moving his hands so his thumbs were now gently stroking across Sebastian's eyebrows.

"I can always hope, I suppose," Sebastian said, his eyes starting to droop under Kurt's ministration. They flicked open again, though. "Hey, Kurt?"

"Mmm?"

"For what it's worth? You're... I... I love you."

Kurt gently ducked his head down to kiss at the v in Sebastian's t-shirt, then at the hollow of his neck, and then, as Sebastian fluttered his eyes shut in anticipation, each of his browned eyelids. "It's worth everything. And I love you too."

And where they'd both been falling, falling, falling, they stopped, having found each other in the tumble down.


	5. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick reminder to read the **warnings** at the start of this fic! And also, if at all possible, I _highly_ recommend that you play Counting Crow's "Colorblind" on youtube if at all possible for Kurt's first POV in this chapter, which should be the third scene in. It 100% sets the atmosphere and tone for the scene.

Kurt got his acceptance letter for NYADA the same day that Sebastian finished his second last end-of-year exam. Sebastian came through the door that afternoon, feeling thoroughly violated by the exam paper, to find Kurt standing next to his desk with a broad, slightly tearful smile on his face. In one hand he held an acceptance letter to NYADA, and the other a resignation letter to Vogue.

Sebastian picked Kurt up in a giant hug, sweeping the smaller boy clear off his feet while Kurt giggled wildly, and then, without putting Kurt down, he kissed the giggles away until his boyfriend was breathless. Sebastian then gave Kurt ten minutes of squealing with Rachel on the phone, before sweeping him into the bedroom to celebrate in a much more Sebastian-appropriate fashion.

It was only later that night, once they'd bothered to crawl out of bed, find food, and crawl back to it with DVDs in hand, that Kurt turned to Sebastian with a smile and said, "This means we can have the summer together, too."

It was the first time they'd really talked about what their relationship was going to look like in anything beyond the _now_ , with both of them in New York. They'd been so determined not to. But earlier that week Sebastian had been given marching orders by his father to come home for the summer, to spend some "quality family time" with the extended Smythes living in Ohio before he went to Ireland. The lease on Sebastian's apartment would end with the month.

"What?" Sebastian asked, catching up with what Kurt had said. "What do you mean? I thought you'd stay here and find another job to keep paying the rent on your apartment."

"I had to resign from Vogue in time to make way for the summer interns," said Kurt idly, slumping against Sebastian's shoulder, "since apparently even Isabelle can't get away with paying me to do something a dozen fashion or journalism students will do for free. And if Rachel's schedule's any indication, I won't have time to work during the school year. So I'll keep paying for the apartment here, but I'll go back to Ohio and help in the shop for the summer."

"Excuse my ignorance, as an upper class brat and all, but how do you intend to pay for your apartment, then?" Sebastian asked, raising an eyebrow. "I know your dad's a senator and all now, but mine's a state's attorney, so I happen to know they don't get paid as much as everyone would like to think."

"Life insurance payout," Kurt said simply, looking down at his hands. "We didn't actually need it to live off, so Mom had always intended for it to be a college fund if she couldn't be here to provide one herself. Dad's been holding off on releasing any of it to me, but now I'm actually enrolled in a college he's letting me use it to pay for the apartment year 'round."

Sebastian dropped his head onto Kurt's shoulder and raised an imaginary glass in the air in front of them. "Here's to life insurance funded students, hey? May we enjoy having the weakest possible consolation prize for losing your mother."

"We?" Kurt looked down at Sebastian's face, tilting it up to look at him more fully. "You said that your dad was paying for all of this," Kurt waved a hand around Sebastian's room, "way back on the first night we came here."

"Indirectly," Sebastian replied, shrugging. "I did tell you that Mom was the better businesswoman. Dad may be worth a bit, but her life insurance payout was seven digits."

"Well, then, as you said, here's to terrible consolation prizes," Kurt said, clinking his own imaginary glass against Sebastian's. "But at least now we have the summer together, and that's a better prize than this."

* * *

 

And then, on the day of Sebastian's last exam, two things happened that raised and smashed his little Kurt-enclosed bubble of a world in one afternoon.

The first occurred as he was striding across one of the main courtyards on campus, trying to get from his exam hall across to the staff room where his last assignment of the year was awaiting pick up. Sebastian had been nervous about the essay, no matter how much bluster he'd put up if anyone accused him of being so; Dalton, as good as a school as it may have been, could only prepare their students for so much. And if Sebastian was serious about studying medicine at NYU later - which he most definitely was - then every good grade counted towards making that goal happen, and every bad one threatened to destroy it.

But as he reached the far side, he half-shoulder checked a boy walking with an older man in his hurry. Once upon a time Sebastian would have continued along, hurrying with a frown set on his face as though the person _he'd_ collided into had somehow been at fault for slowing him down. But when Sebastian had started looking for atonement, he'd begun with the little wrong things he could stop doing in the future, and that included acting like a superior ass (at least, not all the time). And even now that Kurt had talked it out of not being so much atonement any more as it was absolution, he figured some old habits could stay dead.

So instead of hurrying he stopped for just a second, so he could toss a relatively courteous apology over his shoulder. And the second was all he needed to recognise the face of the boy, the one boy who could stop his heart just as well as Kurt could but in a completely different, absolutely sickening way.

For some godforsaken reason, David Karofsky was in a courtyard at NYU.

"David!" Sebastian said, aware that his voice wobbled just a little. "Oh god, wow. Hi! Sorry about the collision there, wasn't really watching where I was going," he said, rubbing the back of his neck in discomfort.

"Hey, Sebastian," David said, and if Sebastian didn't know any better, he'd say David's smile was almost genuine. "How are you? Do you go here?"

"I'm fine, thanks. And yeah," Sebastian added, "just finished my first year of pre-med."

"And how are you liking it?"

Sebastian searched Karofsky's face for any traces of... well, anything negative, and found none.

"It's alright. It's New York, at least, which beats absolutely everything in Ohio any day."

"Oh yeah," David agreed, with a slight laugh. "I'd bet on it. I'm actually here right now looking for student accommodation. I just finished my second go at senior year, and with good enough grades to get in this time."

There was no sting in David's voice at the casual allusion to his attempt, the only reason David was graduating this year and hadn't done so at the same time as Kurt and Sebastian. In fact, he looked almost downright cheerful about the fact that he'd had a second senior year, though Sebastian figured that getting a chance to move to New York this time around probably helped that.

"Well, I wish I could recommend you a dorm, but I skipped that whole experience," Sebastian said. "Good luck in your search, though. And, oh, hey, when you're here next year, you should probably hunt down Kurt. He'll be starting at NYADA and would probably like to see you around." _One more millimetre of good at a time, if that's the way you have to do it, Smythe._

David looked momentarily surprised, casting a quick look at his dad who had wandered further down the courtyard to inspect the notice boards along one wall. "You talk to Kurt Hummel? I don't mean to sound harsh, but that's kind of a shock. Since the only time I ever saw you two together was when you were trying to steal his boyfriend at Scandals."

Sebastian smiled tightly and said, "Well, now I _am_ his boyfriend."

David barked out a laugh at that. "You know, I'd almost fucking believe it. Hummel always looked for the biggest challenge he could find."

"To say the least," Sebastian agreed lightly. He re-slung his bag on his back then, and said, "Well, it was really great to see you. I guess I'll-"

"Wait," David said, sticking his hands in his pocket. "Um, just before you go? I know it was awhile ago, but I wanted to thank you for dedicating that performance to me, back last year. And collecting all that money for the Born This Way Foundation. It meant a lot, particularly at the time."

Sebastian just blinked at David for a moment. "Well, um, I'm glad. But really, you know, it was the least I could do. It was still a pretty pathetic way of saying sorry, but it was about all I could manage at the time."

"Sorry?" David looked genuinely perplexed.

"For being a complete dick to you?"

The confusion takes a moment more to clear from David's face. "Oh, that time in Scandals? Man, it was the least of my problems. You're fine."

They both said their goodbyes for the time being, and just like that, Sebastian's world shifted. Because just like Kurt had said, absolution had apparently been all he'd needed.

Well, no, to be fair, Sebastian's world had been shifting for awhile. Meeting Kurt again had been the start of it, way back in January, the first glimmer of hope that maybe one day Sebastian would be able to stop running. Because it hadn't been so hard to atone for his mistakes with Kurt, and by extension Blaine. But at the time, it certainly hadn't been enough. So when the opportunity had arisen to go on exchange for his sophomore year, Sebastian had signed up in an instant.

Because back then, it had seemed necessary. Apparently running from Ohio to New York hadn't been enough to shake this constant mantra of needing to atone, but maybe, just maybe, Ireland would do it.

But as Sebastian's relationship with Kurt evolved and Sebastian himself evolved, little niggling doubts had started to creep up in Sebastian's brain. Voices that had told him that maybe running away to Ireland wasn't the solution. Maybe staying right here would bring more peace in the long run. Sebastian had, of course, ignored them, with all of the strong will and determination he could put to the task. Right up until Kurt had all but bullied Sebastian into starting a relationship - a real-life relationship, god, he still couldn't believe it half the time - and then the voices sprung up again. But even loving Kurt hadn't ever soothed that need, whatever part of his mind it was that was needed something more before it could put all Sebastian's most haunting nightmares to rest. So, lacking any better options, Sebastian was still determined to leave, to go looking for anything that he may find to make it easier.

The talk with Kurt after his nightmare had almost unseated the whole thing. Sebastian had wanted so badly to believe in the difference between atonement and absolution, and that he only needed the latter. Had already gotten it. The next morning, Sebastian's finger had hovered over the cancel button on his flights to Dublin, and he'd very nearly pulled out of the trip. But something had held him back.

Sebastian wasn't even sure what it had been any more. If he'd been waiting for a sign - though Sebastian didn't believe in signs or fate or whatever else crazy old aunts tried to sell you - this talk with David had clearly been it.

Maybe he wouldn't only have the summer with Kurt. Maybe he could have the whole future. Because David's casual forgiveness had been met with the resounding click of something settling in place that Sebastian hadn't heard since Kurt had come to rest in his heart.

That hope lasted right until he sneaked into his own apartment - where Kurt could be found when not at work, more often than not - and heard Kurt Skyping Blaine.

Because _Blaine_. The very reason Sebastian had held off pulling out of the exchange to Ireland. The one he knew, whether Kurt denied it or not, he had three sevenths of a chance of having to fight off next year. Blaine Anderson never went down without a fight, nor did he ever do things by halves. If he was in the same city as Kurt, Blaine would fight for Kurt until he won.

Sebastian heard Blaine happily sigh and say, "I can't believe it. I can't believe we'll be going into NYADA together, the same year and everything. It's going to be _amazing_ , Kurt." So not three sevenths. Blaine had gotten into NYADA too. And even though Sebastian couldn't see Kurt's laptop screen from the door, he knew Blaine would be turning those huge heart eyes on Kurt, the ones that always came with that thick, softened tone of voice.

Sebastian heard Kurt make some idle sounds of agreement, and was just about to walk into the apartment proper - because after all, Kurt was still his boyfriend for now and had promised him _celebrations_ at the end of his last exam, and Blaine Anderson could go to hell - when a question from Blaine stopped him again.

"So, what about your mystery man, Kurt? Is he still leaving at the end of the year?"

"Yes, he is."

"So that means you and I can talk over the summer? About maybe finding _us_ again?"

Sebastian didn't hear the rest of the conversation. He stepped back out of the apartment, made it two steps past the door, and then sank to the ground.

From elation to punched-in-the-gut in half an hour. This was why he didn't fucking do feelings.

So, that was it, then, really. Because Sebastian knew that even if he and Kurt loved each other, that wouldn't be enough. Kurt and Blaine loved each other too. Blaine had loved Kurt while Sebastian was still treating him like an inferior life form, and there was no way Sebastian could possibly compete with a handicap like that. And Kurt was probably agreeing with Blaine right now, that since his "mystery man" - and god, Kurt had been so sure that this would end with Sebastian leaving that Blaine didn't even know who he _was_ \- would soon be far away and out of the picture, that of course they would talk about getting back together. Because that had been the deal, hadn't it? Even Sebastian had known that, since that first hangover together. Kurt and Blaine would only break up for as long as they weren't in the same city.

Maybe there was a good reason to still go to Ireland after all. He wouldn't run from the ghosts of all his fuck ups but he could sure as hell still run from the ghost of Kurt, haunting his New York life.

Sebastian waited for another ten minutes for Kurt and Blaine to finish their Skype call, and then entered the apartment to a mischievously grinning Kurt, who immediately pushed Sebastian up against the door, claiming his mouth with heat and skill and warmth.

"I promise you, Sebastian Smythe, that that was only the start of the best summer of your life," Kurt mock-growled. Sebastian let himself fall back into the kiss for a moment longer, and then broke away.

"Kurt, stop for a second. Just. Please. We should probably talk about this summer."

* * *

 

A week into the summer, Kurt was still in shock.

It had been a week since Kurt had left New York, on a plane that he and Sebastian were supposed to take back together.

Sebastian had opted to fly back two days after Kurt, saying he hadn't quite finished packing the apartment.

It had been a week and three days since Sebastian had sat Kurt down after his last exam and said it was better off if they didn't spend the summer together. None of the commuting an hour to get to one another, fitting each other around shifts at shops and stuffy family gatherings. Just a clean snap. Kurt and Sebastian the couple could stay in New York, Kurt and Sebastian the people going home separate entities.

It had been ten days, and Kurt was still trying hard not to cry every time something reminded him of Sebastian - which almost his whole life did - or remind him of the summer he was supposed to have with the boy, which was everything that didn't directly remind him of Sebastian. He just didn't understand. Sebastian loved him. Kurt _knew_ that, knew it well despite all the doubts that Rachel and even his dad were trying to put into his head now that he was home. And yet, Sebastian had chosen to cut months off the time they were supposed to have together.

Time where they were going to have finally gotten to spend a whole three days literally only coming out of Sebastian's bedroom for food. Where they were going to slowly work their way through the entire shopping districts of Lima and Westerville. Where they'd get to keep being Kurt and Sebastian for just those few more months.

Time where Kurt was going to convince Sebastian that their relationship was worth salvaging in whatever form possible. Be it long distance, open, or just on pause until Sebastian got back from Ireland. Kurt was going to have had the time to talk Sebastian around.

But suddenly Kurt didn't.

He had been home a week now, though, and he still hadn't had 'that talk' with Blaine. Blaine seemed as anxious to have it already as Kurt was not to. Kurt tried not to think about the fact that Blaine might have his own couple-y summer dreams all laid out in his head, just as unwitting that they were going to be ripped out from under him as Kurt had been. Kurt really hoped not.

So Kurt ordered their coffees, got them to go, and was ready and waiting for Blaine under an awning out the front of the Lima Bean seven days after he landed back in Lima. When Blaine greeted him with a smile and a hug, Kurt returned the favour, but instead of letting Blaine steer him to one of the café tables, directed them to a place slightly more secluded. He wanted to minimise the pain for everyone involved.

They both chattered for awhile, skirting the topic with awkward lunges. They talked more about NYADA - more NYADA, always these days, and Kurt wasn't sure how he'd ever be able to look at something with the NYADA logo on it and not think about the fact that he was only there because Sebastian had made him apply. But finally they landed on the topic of living arrangements, specifically Blaine's in New York, and Blaine could clearly not hold it in any longer.

"Kurt?" he asked, putting down his mostly empty coffee cup next to him on the wooden bench they'd settled, near a small pond. "You know I'm not seeing anyone. Haven't been for at least a month. And there was no one serious basically the whole year. I love you and I am _so ready_ to try and find our relationship again."

Kurt said, "I'm so sorry," and watched the world fall out from under Blaine Anderson.

He followed it with, "I can't," and then wrapped one arm around Blaine and one arm around himself, squished awkwardly together and overheating on the park bench.

Blaine's head was lowered, even if he crept slowly closer into the arm Kurt had around him, and he didn't lift it until his eyes were red and swollen but his cheeks were dry. "Mystery man?" was all he asked.

"Even if he doesn't want our relationship any more," Kurt said, "I still belong to him now. I'm sorry. I really am. I'm sorry." They wiped away at each other's tears until they giggled a little but their skin was raw and painful.

"You'd better tell me about him, now," Blaine eventually said. "One way or another, I'm going to hear about him. And when he comes back for you - which he will, just you wait - I'm probably going to see a lot of him. So you'd better prepare your best friend, hey? So I don't make a fool of myself once I do meet him."

And Kurt started to cry all over again because Blaine was still his best friend, and he was really so perfect in so many ways. "It's Sebastian Smythe," he said. "I'm in love with Sebastian. And he's run away from me and I don't know why."

And Blaine hugged Kurt with his whole body, as best as he could on that awkward wooden bench, and ignored the fact that they were in public. They talked for hours, and when Kurt kissed Blaine on the forehead and said, "I still love you; that will never change," it was true. Because it's not that he'd ever forget Blaine or how to love him. You don't ever lose a part of you that big, that deep. You just keep growing even bigger, until something that once filled your whole heart and spilled out into your chest is dwarfed, an unassuming little nugget of silver all but swallowed in the gold of something larger.

Sebastian had made Kurt feel like that. A hundred times _more_ and filled with gold brighter than sunlight.

* * *

 

Sebastian was focused.

The air here was thickened by alcohol, sweet and heavy on his tongue. He was sprawled in the corner of this basement-dark nightclub that was more familiar than it should be for the few times he'd been there. Alcohol does that to him; he remembers tangible things like layouts and furniture but not sensations or faces. But for now, that was irrelevant. He was focused. He was counting. His brain counted the seconds to midnight by following the numbers on his phone screen, his bones by each heavy beat reverberating around the closed space; but his heart counted them by the constant changes in its enclosed little world. One, the muscles that are the edges of its enclosure hauled his ribs up and out; two, air rushed into the changed space; three, muscles pulled his ribs back down; four, a moment of unbearable pressure; five, the air fled. Release. Relief. Cycling again and again, tracking the seconds to midnight by the upheavals of a tiny universe.

Breathe, breathe, release, relief, and it was midnight. He was twenty one but Kurt was now twenty. Sebastian whispered, "Happy birthday, babe," to either the echoes of his mind or the grinding mess of dancers before him. He wasn't entirely sure which, but it didn't matter, because he wouldn't say it to Kurt for hours. He probably shouldn't say it at all.

Sebastian wondered if there would ever be closure; probably not. The universe makes it far too easy for them to find each other time and time again, in the corner of a mind if not a physical presence, exhuming their relationship no matter how far down the grave should have been dug. He'd always tried to compartmentalise, to put his life into chapters. But with Kurt, he can't. It's always just one twisting, twisted stream of emotion.

A friend approached, slipping Sebastian's phone into his pocket and pulling Sebastian from his sprawl, out into the middle of the dance pit. He and Sebastian both moved on from the possibility of each other long ago, Sebastian gone to New York, the friend enraptured by a girl that smells like relief and release. But somehow he and Sebastian always ended up here, alcohol heavy on their tongues and lungs, hips and foreheads pressed together. His hand fisted in Sebastian's hair, bigger than Kurt's but never as tangible; he pressed his mouth to Sebastian's, everything melding. Sebastian's brain stopped thinking and his bones stopped feeling and eventually his mouth became someone else's; but his heart, the exhumer, clung to Kurt's constant while its world raged and roiled.

* * *

 

The space was full of the smell of alcohol and heavy dance beats, but awkwardly so; the room knew that this was not its typical purpose, so wore the evening's revelry with discomfort. Kurt was too far gone to care any more, though; he took the discomfort - the room's, his friends', his own - and draped it around him like fine fabrics. As he danced the fabric caught the light, a false glimmer from something that shouldn't be allowed to shine.

Up until twenty minutes ago, it had been his birthday; he was now twenty and a tiny bit closer to Sebastian's twenty one. But they had been free of each other for three weeks now, so he shouldn't care about Sebastian's age in relation to his own. He should have instead been revelling in the fact that his age was the same as that of everyone around him, a whole crowd of wild youth glorying in the free pass to drink whatever is cheap and dance to whatever is playing. Quality was beautifully damned in the hands of teenagers.

And then there was a girl's hand on his arm and a shrill voice in his ear, telling him that they're moving on from his basement now, that they've all gotten fake IDs and they're going to Scandals. Before Kurt could protest - because Scandals, of all places, was going to hurt like hell, and he was already too drunk to keep his emotions held together - he was being bundled into Lima's sole maxi cab.

Any half-baked hopes Kurt had of being turned away at the door for being so obviously too young or too drunk were quickly dashed by the "bouncers" at Scandals, who were just as apathetic and miserable as the last time Kurt was there. So Kurt let his friends bustle him inside and swallowed the drinks they bought him - just a few more to forget that Sebastian and Kurt had ever been in this place together - and then he danced with all of them. If there was one thing Kurt had perfected over the year in New York, it had been the art of drunkenly dancing, and Kurt entertained all of his friends in turn with his somewhat obscene grinding.

But it was all a joke, because none of them were Charlie, none of them were Sebastian, and Blaine declined his turn.

As the world truly started to swirl dangerously and tipped in all sorts of interesting directions, Kurt finally found the bathroom. And he stumbled in, hoping to find an empty stall, only to find a boy on the floor, surrounded by blood and the pieces of a broken beer bottle.

It wasn't a boy Kurt knew but he was still clearly so very, very hurt, so Kurt _screamed_ and people came in, Blaine barrelling in first and then he called in the bouncers who were suddenly looking alert. And then there was an ambulance and Blaine took Kurt outside, trying to hug him or reassure him or _something_ but all Kurt could do was fumble for his phone. Sense memory guided him from there, the way it had every time Kurt was too drunk and in over his head and needed someone to take care of him.

"Sebastian?" he sobbed when the dial tone stopped. "Sebastian, I'm _so_ drunk and there was a boy in the bathrooms and I think he tried to commit suicide and I really, _really_ need you right now."

Sebastian demanded to know where he was, and stuttering between hiccupping breaths, Kurt told him. Kurt drifted in a terrified haze until Sebastian arrived, dishevelled and tired-looking but running concerned hands over Kurt's face and shoulders in a way that almost brought Kurt instantly to his knees, as those of Kurt's friends who were still around watched on in amazement.

And then Sebastian bundled Kurt into his car, even as he got the full story from Tina, and drove them somewhere that Kurt didn't particularly care to know the location of. He figured out it was Sebastian's house soon enough, though, when he was sat against the headboard of a bed that smelled like everything good in the world. Kurt could barely stop himself from faceplanting into the sheets to bury himself in the scent; it was only the sight of Sebastian's face before him that held him upright.

Over what Kurt vaguely realised was probably a very long time Sebastian talked Kurt into drinking a whole water bottle and then coaxed him into telling Sebastian the whole story from Kurt's perspective. At one point Kurt tried to snuggle into Sebastian's body and just sleep the way he had so many other times, and whined in distress when Sebastian wouldn't let him.

"I'm sorry, Kurt," Sebastian said gently, "but for starters, we're not in a relationship any more, so snuggling? Not something you and I do. And also, you're not going to sleep until you've talked that memory away. I'm not letting you lock it into your nightmares instead."

So Kurt stayed up with Sebastian for hours, and they talked about all the inane things they'd each missed over three weeks. Things like Sebastian finally getting that mark back on his essay - a good one, thankfully - and Kurt's skin not being up to the harsh garage conditions after so long away. And then, just as Kurt started to feel sober again, and the Ohio summer sunlight started to make the sky a little bluer on one side, Sebastian asked, "Why did you call me?"

Kurt didn't even have to think at all. "Because you're the safest place on earth that I could ever think of."

Their conversation slowed the more the sun rose and the more Kurt sobered up, Sebastian withdrawing back into the same detached shell he'd used to break up with Kurt back in New York. By the time the sun rose fully and Sebastian called Kurt a cab, they were all but silent, not for a lack of trying on Kurt's part. Sebastian walked Kurt down to the taxi and passed the driver a hundred dollar bill before Kurt could protest, but then stopped Kurt before he could actually get in.

"Look, Kurt, even if we aren't together any more or you have a new boyfriend or whatever," Sebastian started, and didn't let Kurt cut in to protest _any_ of the things he's just said, "I'm still glad you called. Because, at least while I'm around, I still want to be a safe place for you if you're drunk or in danger. Call me and I'll be there if you need me to be." And then Sebastian nodded awkwardly, before pausing, and carefully tipped forward to kiss Kurt's forehead.

"I'll see you around," he said, and then walked back to the front door, where he watched Kurt get into the cab with tears on both their faces, though only Kurt would admit to them.

* * *

 

Only a couple of hours after he'd finally sent Kurt on his way home, Sebastian was dragged out a fitful, late-morning sleep by someone viciously abusing his doorbell. His father was somewhere interstate for the weekend, dealing with some sort of multi-state crisis that apparently could not wait until Monday, so Sebastian was forced to answer the door himself when it became clear the intruder was not planning on leaving.

Blaine was on the other side of the door. The boy was neatly dressed as always, and his facial expression was the same, over-practiced calm smile that he so often sported, but there was an angry tilt to Blaine's shoulders that Sebastian hadn't seen before. It was the only thing that stopped Sebastian from slamming the door again the moment he'd seen the gel helmet. Instead, Sebastian grabbed hold of the door handle as if looking for extra support and said, "Look, I don't know how much Kurt remembers of last night right now but I didn't do anything inappropriate with your boyfriend, just calmed his ass down because his drunk mind is used to me. So I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to hit me and just let me go back to sleep."

Blaine's shoulders hunched even more throughout Sebastian's little spiel, and by the end of it even his composed smile had slipped and turned into a slight scowl. "I don't even know where to start with that, Sebastian," he said. "Can I come in? Just for a moment? This won't take long."

Sebastian muttered, "Somehow, I doubt that," but stepped aside to let Blaine in anyway. He led Blaine to the nearest room with chairs - which happened to be the dining room - and pulled out a chair to sprawl on before waving a hand for Blaine to do the same.

"First of all, Kurt remembers everything from last night, which is part of the reason I'm here; apparently you won't listen to him, just talk _at_ him and then put him in a taxi. Second, Kurt is not my boyfriend."

"Damn, Anderson, you move slower than you used to," Sebastian drawled, trying not to show any of the tension suddenly pulling his frame tight.

"Oh, trust me, it's not from lack of trying," Blaine retorted, waving one hand through the air. "But I knew I was potentially going to lose him forever when I let him go, so I'm trying not to be bitter about it." Blaine looked up from where he'd been regarding the polished surface of Sebastian's mahogany dining table to shoot the older boy a hard look. "You're making it very difficult for me to remain the supportive best friend, though, Sebastian, so consider this me politely requesting that you stop being such a dick."

"Excuse me?" Sebastian asked, shoving a little disbelief into his voice. "What do I have to do with the fact that you've apparently lost the ability to woo even those already slave to your frighteningly large puppy dog stare?"

"Because Kurt turned me down," Blaine snapped, standing up. "He said that he belonged to you, even if you didn't want him any more. So I would _appreciate_ it if you put all of us out of our misery and at least talk to him so he doesn't spend the entire next four years at NYADA wondering why you ran away from him."

Sebastian was still rooted to his seat thirty seconds later when Blaine let himself out. It took him several minutes to gather his thoughts properly; everything had slowed from the moment Blaine said Kurt had turned him down. Slowly, he rose from his chair and wandered back into his bedroom, grinning when he saw a pile of newly-printed papers on his desk, covered with things like flight codes and enrolment instructions for an unfamiliar university. Sebastian picked up the papers, grabbed his car keys and dashed outside the door before he let another single, stupid thing change his mind.

The drive to Lima was torturous, and probably dangerous, with the amount of weaving and speeding Sebastian did to get to Kurt's house. Five minutes out, Sebastian realised he didn't know the exact location of the street Kurt lived on, and thus the last five minutes of his drive were also near-suicidal, as he wrestled with his GPS system as well as the traffic around him.

Sebastian eventually reached Kurt's driveway, and he almost tripped out of his car in his haste to get to the front door, which he then proceeded to abuse in much the same manner that Blaine had his. It only occurred to Sebastian after he heard footsteps coming towards him that Burt Hummel could very well be home, and he'd almost turned to run away, figuring it was better he came back later and at least lived long enough to talk to Kurt one last time.

But then Kurt opened the door, eyes red-rimmed, looking very wan, and so very precious. And the first thing Sebastian did was take Kurt into his arms, not even bothering to move from the doorstep.

"Sebastian?" Kurt squeaked, trying to wiggle free of the arms that had just locked around him. "What on earth are you doing?"

"You're going to be so angry with me," Sebastian said, smiling down at Kurt. "You were right. I am an idiot." Kurt folded his arms, drawing attention to the NYU logo across his chest. Sebastian's smile turned into a grin. "Oh, you're going to be _so_ mad. But, before I say anything else, just so you know: I love you."

"I love you too. But I'm starting to get the impression you're drugged, so maybe you should come inside before someone snatches you off the street," Kurt said, and tugged Sebastian into the hallway, closing the door behind him. "Now. Why am I going to be mad at you? Besides the obvious, that is."

"Uh, I broke up with you because I thought you were going to leave me for Blaine this summer?"

The screech Sebastian gained in response was not entire audible to his ears. The rain of slaps he received to his chest and shoulders, though, he definitely felt. And Kurt? Was still super hot when he was angry.

Hours later, Kurt had screamed out all his rage, which Sebastian bore meekly, and then had silently cried for half an hour while he'd talked, which Sebastian did not bear at all. He'd then let Sebastian dismantle him in tiny increments, each piece handled with delicacy, stripping out all the memories of the summer so far in the process. It was only when they had both been put back together again for the third time by soothing, gentle kisses that Sebastian led Kurt back into the hall to gather the pieces of paper he'd dropped there.

Then they sat down at the computer, Kurt on Sebastian's lap, and Sebastian settled his hand on the mouse. Kurt covered Sebastian's hand with his own, matching the slightly larger hand finger for finger, and it was Kurt's hand that guided the pair of them through the steps necessary to cancel all of Sebastian's flights, his enrolment at Trinity and his student accommodation there.

"So," Sebastian said, turning Kurt in his lap until he could press his forehead to Kurt's temple and kiss slowly down his jaw. "How long will it be until I redeem myself?"

"For all that? Eons," Kurt said flatly, getting to his feet and pulling Sebastian with him, only to topple both of them onto the bed. "But you can start with the grovelling later. For now I just want to cuddle."

Sebastian pressed Kurt into the mattress, and then kissed at the neck of the t-shirt, the hollow of his throat, and at each of Kurt's eyelids. And then, when Kurt was sleeping, he let himself get caught up in it all for just a moment, and wrote in perfect, sloping letters down the inside of Kurt's forearm, _You're spending the rest of everything with Sebastian._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading along with me! I hope you enjoyed it. I'm considering writing a follow up oneshot with my last few days of summer break detailing the last few days of Kurt and Sebastian's, so keep an eye out for that!


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